To Whom It May Concern

Poor Squirrel, Stupid Bird

I don't care much for hitting animals with my car, as I've already mentioned, I have developed an intimate hatred for deer, but even running over the smallest of animals makes me feel bad, just for the idea that, whether they be trying to commit suicide or perhaps join an elusive 'survived the highway crossing' club with their fellow animals, they don't have a Twix bar on Rosie Odonnell's desk chance of surviving when a car hits them. Just the other night I tagged a rabbit with my car because it ran out directly in front of me before I could react, and I do try to avoid hitting them if I can.

But birds, well, it's hard for me to have any feelings of remorse about an animal that can fly well above a car to cross the road, but is so dumb as to test fate by crossing at about 2 to 3 feet off the ground. It's bewildering as I pluck the carcass of a sparrow from the grill of my car, as to why birds even attempt something as stupid as that when they could easily avoid being hit by just gaining altitude. Other animals are nearly always hit at night, with good reason. Take the sinister evil deer for instance: the deer tries to cross the road, suicidally and stupidly albeit, at night, and sees it's shadow, and tries to run from it's shadow. What direction does the animal run? Right at the car, into the headlights, because the shadow is all the deer sees. This goes for most other animals also, but not birds. There aren't a whole lot of birds that fly at night, a bird's sense of sight is it's strength, so daytime flying is a must (except for owls and a few others). So usually we hit birds with our cars during the day. For having such good eyesight, birds are certainly moronic for even getting hit, if it were at night perhaps I could understand it.

I am sitting here now trying to think of the total of animals I have hit over the past several years, and it's surprising me to be quite truthful. 3 deer, a cow, a dog, a raccoon, a squirrel, numerous dumb birds, a couple rabbits, a 40ish year old hitchhiker, oh, and a pheasant. I suppose I could just include the pheasant in the 'dumb birds' category, but for the fact that it's the closest I ever got to actually losing control of a vehicle because of hitting an animal. Even when I'd hit deer it wasn't this bad.

I was driving my 1984 Dodge D-50 pickup, a mitsubishi built little truck with a 4 cylinder motor. I was rounding a giant curve around Fremont, Nebraska, when out of nowhere a pheasant blasted the windshield of my truck right in front of my face. It scared the crap out of me so badly that I drove about halfway into the ditch and nearly lost control of my truck, I don't know how the windshield didn't get cracked. I can remember laughing about it but my heart was racing so hard it took me probably a half hour to calm down.

Most often when I hit an animal it is at night, perhaps I need to quit driving once it's dark out, perhaps animals are ganging up on me Kamikaze style to try and take me out, I mean, who knows? What if there is a rhinoceros or hippo out there just waiting to charge out in front of my car? I can't be too sure that someone who is trying to take me out hasn't put rhino or hippo whistles on my car, backwards... perhaps I will look over my car thoroughly tomorrow.

Oh, and I never really hit a hitchhiker, someone else had already run over him before I ever did, I swear...