parenting: Holiday season at the malls, deer season on the roads

My husband was excited because we’d be heading to St. Louis the next day for the Big Twelve Championship. (His team would play Texas. Our tickets were in the glove compartment.) I was excited because I was a young bride, and I really only had two moods in those days: totally excited and totally bummed.

The road home was straight and dark. Christmas music issued from the radio. Our conversation bounced along with disjointed cheer, like so:

“We need to leave around 5:00 tomorrow morning.”

“How many babies do you think we’ll have?”

“I’ll pack a cooler and you can make sandwiches.”

“One, do you think, or four?”

“What? Why would you just make one?”

“Well, exactly. I like your thought process here. Because, if we have at least two, then they can play together, and they won’t be lonely.”

“I’m thinking now that you were never talking about sandwiches.”

“No—babies! How many babies will we have?”

“Um, I don’t know.”

“Just guess, then.”

“Well, I suppose two sounds right. Four is probably more than we can handle. Also, I’m pretty sure you can’t leave babies home alone all day, like we do with the dogs.”

I don’t remember who was talking when the deer ran into the road ahead of us. I do know what song was playing: a Bob and Tom ditty called "Boob Job for Christmas." My husband threw his right arm across my chest and said, “Oh no.” And then we hit the deer so flush and so hard that it seemed to disappear. There was an enormous animal in the headlights, and then there wasn’t.

The Good Truck wobbled as my husband steered it to the side of the road.

(I want a booooooob job for Christmas!)

Neither of us thought to turn down the radio.

(Make them big and make them wiiiiiiiiiiide!)

I buried my face in my hands.

(The only blimps as big as these—)

My husband asked if I was okay.

(—say “Goodyear” on the side!)

“I’m fine!” I wailed. “But that poor deer!” Shoot. Now I was totally bummed.

He patted my shoulder and started to get out of the car, but I grabbed his arm and said, “Don’t! We can’t do anything for the deer. Let’s just drive home.”

His next expression was equal parts concern and disbelief. I figured he was sad about the deer, but I now I know he was thinking, “Oh darn. This woman I recently married believes that crashing into a deer is like crashing into a squirrel.”

“We can’t drive home,” he said gently. “The car is totaled.”

This was back in the days before omnipresent cell phones; but, even if we’d been able to call for assistance, I don’t think we could have given directions more specific than, “We’re on the country road that goes out to our house.”

So we waited in the dark.

About 20 minutes later, our saviors arrived in an old pickup. We got out of the battered Pathfinder and watched the pickup’s window roll down, inch by jerky inch. Inside the cab were three men wearing camouflage jumpsuits, each of them smiling and holding a can of beer.

“What did you do?” one of them asked. It sounded like Wudjahdoo?

When we explained that we’d hit a deer, another one said, “Is it worth keeping?" (Zitwurth keepun?)

I didn’t know how to answer. What exactly were the criteria for collecting and preserving road kill? And anyway, the deer was nowhere to be seen. I wondered hopefully if it had run away, but when I looked back, I saw that the Good Truck was crumpled and splashed with blood.

“Well, hop in,” the driver of the pickup said amiably, and the passenger door swung open with a groan.

There were slats built up around the bed of the truck, and straw was poking through the boards. Feeling a sense of excitement that was completely incongruous with our situation, I thought, “We can sit back there—it will be like a hayride!” But the men in the truck said, “Naw!” and when I peered more closely through the slats, I saw that there was no room for us in the truck bed, because of a cow.

It wasn’t a calf or even a smallish cow. It was a big, fat cow, sprawled out in the hay and taking up every bit of space. The look on her face seemed to say, “Back off.” And so what else could we do?

We hopped in.

We ended up on the men’s laps, our heads bent low against the ceiling. They were worried that we were uncomfortable, and we said no, we were just grateful for the ride. They offered us some beer, and one of them handed me a can that was already open and slightly warm. The cab was so crowded and my neck was bent so awkwardly that I couldn’t see my husband; but, I could hear him laughing.

The men wished us merry Christmas and dropped us in our driveway, where my husband stared scrupulously at the Other Truck. He was thinking about our trip the next day—he really didn’t want to miss it—but I knew there wasn’t enough duct tape in the world to get that Chevy to St. Louis.

In the end, it didn’t matter. The Chevy had a flat tire, and my husband discovered that the spare was also flat only after he’d put it on the truck. We spent the rest of the weekend moping and searching for the tire iron (which my husband had hurled into the woods, during a moment of 2:00 a.m. frustration). We never found it.

Today, thank goodness, I’m wiser than I was back then. I know we were lucky to escape that crash without injuries. I know we should have spent that long-ago December night rejoicing, not moping. I know the answer to that hypothetical question about our babies: Two--a boy and a girl. And so now, when I hit the road this time of year, my knuckles are white, and my eyes are peeled.