I ran over a squirrel, and I don't feel real good

Was driving my daughter and a friend to the movies tonight.

About to exit my development, driving about 30 mph, a squirrel darted across the street.

Well, that was its intent.

It was right in front of my car. All I cound do was keep my wheels straight and hope against hope I would miss the little bugger.

Thud.

It felt like the tiniest of speed bumps.

After dropping the girls off, I started feeling really bad about being so directly attached to the end of a life. Really, surprisingly so.

I drope back to the site where it happened. No one else had flattened the little carcass.

I pulled slightly to the right so I could get a good look out my driver's window.

There was no gore. Just these wide-open spooky squirrel eyes staring toward the heavens. The hair on its tail was waving in the breeze, evidence of how recently the end had come for this little buddy.

No point to this, really.

But I was surprised that an unavoidable accident and its inevitable outcome had such a tug at my innards.

 

And yet you started a best duets thread before this one?

 

I've felt that way about squirrels before. The worst was my boss and I were driving down a highway really late at night and we saw something in the road, couldn't tell what it was and only realized when we were about 60 feet from it that it was a mom cat and three kittens. He drives an SUV and we were travelling 60 mph, so there was no swerving, we drilled the whole group. It actually made me physically ill.

 

Such is life in a random world.

 

Here's Pube's problem with running over the squirrel...

squirrels are rodents, too.

 

Maybe.

 

I have been in that situation, 'Gola, although only going half that fast. I have swerved.

My car had $3,500 in damages.

I love animals. Avoid them ... but not at all costs.

 

That was what I tried to impart to these 13-year-old girls right afterward.

In such a situation, you have to keep your wheels straight and hope for a miracle.

And not make the situation much worse.

I don't think that lesson survived the popcorn line at the movie, though.

Oh well.

 

Well, I got lucky. Insurance paid for damages. Learned my lesson then, at 16, and never been in an accident since. Knockonwood.

 

A few years back, I hit a big freakin' dog. It was a mutt (I think) but about lab size.
It ran into the side of my car, which I saw coming. I tried to miss it, but there was too much traffic for me to do much.
I found out later it actually got dragged under the car a little ways as well (the person behind me was someone I knew).
It was still alive when its owner rushed it off to the vet.
It wasn't alive by the next morning.
I felt bad for the guy and the dog, but the dumbass had left it on the porch on a busy street during rush hour. I hope he learned his lesson (and never has children).

 

My fiancee ran over a bird the other day. She slowed down and tried to avoid it. Bird wanted to die, though.

 

I got two roadkill stories to share ...

When I was about 8-years-old, my dad and I were driving to the lake in his Jeep Wrangler in the middle of summer - top off, flimsy, plastic doors on, my arm hanging out the window. He saw a turtle in the road and I swear he swerved on purposed to hit the turtle. End result: I got turltle guts all over my arm and of course freaked out as he just laughed. Asshole.

Second story:
Driving home from a high school party, drunk off my asssssssssssss, with a friend who was spending the night because he was of like drunkeness and couldn't go home in that condition, I hit a armadillo 10 minutes into the drive home. Oh well. No big deal. Better to keep it between the yellow lines, yaknowwhatI'msaying? Well, 10 minutes later, going around a hairpin turn, I nail another armadillo in the middle of the turn. I drove a Camaro at the time, low to the ground and because of the degree of the turn, I could actually feel the armadillo under my feet grind into the road for about 5 feet until the road leveled out. Ultra gross. I thought I was gonna yak right there. Of course, my friend was not making it any easier by shouting "Oh my God, dude, you just hit another one. Oh my god, oh my god."