Road Kill Chili

A few months ago I hit a deer while going home late at night. It was a terrible experience, for the deer and me. I drive a minivan with those sloped front ends, and I guess Ford knew what it was doing with that design, because that deer flew over the car and into a ditch. It reminded me of the cowcatchers on trains. For the record, before y'all label me a deerkiller, that deer jumped onto my car--no kidding. There was no damage to the front end, the air bags didn't deploy. That crazy animal jumped onto the hood and crushed it into the engine!

Nevertheless, that stretch of road is pretty bad at night. The area is still relatively rural. There are no sidewalks, no streetlights, it's pitch black at night, and the road curves a lot, so you happen upon things suddenly.

For years we have complained about a man (maybe homeless, maybe not) who rides his bicycle on that stretch of road. The thing is, we never know what side he's going to be on, or what kind of hazard he's going to cause, because he's usually laden with giant bags of...who knows what's in those bags, but they are giant, and they always take up a bunch of room on the road. He looks like those people in pictures of the Third World, with all their possessions piled high on a bike. We've nicknamed him Menace, and we are in a constant state of vigilance because we never know where he's going to show up.

Recently, he's been joined in disrupting the peace of mind on that road by Menace II, new and improved, and capable of stunning the motorists into spasms of swerving and braking. This new guy travels up and down the road in an electric wheelchair. He seems to enjoy playing a game of chicken with the cars, because he chooses to exit his driveway right when the car is about to cross it. He couldn't wait two seconds?

Now there's yet another wacko on the obstacle course that used to be a road. This new guy is clearly mentally afflicted (what, like the other two aren't?) because he stands guard at the end of his driveway. In daylight, he stands there, rigid as a post, as if he were at attention or something. At night, however, he becomes animated. He plays in the traffic. For real. We don't know what he's doing in the middle of the street, directing traffic? counting cars? trying to get his wings? This weekend he did something very special for me. As I slowed down because I saw him perched at the end of the driveway ready to do something weird, he lifted his shirt and exposed his voluminous belly to me. Does anyone have a hot poker so I can put out my eyes?

I've decided that the best course of action is to improve my hand eye coordination, because those nutjobs aren't going away, and I have to be prepared. I found this little game to help you waste endless hours at work, while you're still on the clock. Don't get caught.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~pontipak/redsquare.html