Picture this. You're driving down the highway, humming with the music, and your mind's just wandering. Then, up ahead on the shoulder of the road, you notice a dark mass just kind of slumped there. As you quickly approach, all of your distinguishing capabilities go to work.
"Is that a coon? No, I think it's a German shepherd."
Then, as you drive by, you see it's just a retreaded tire that broke free. You're a little disappointed.
You are sick! When you expect to see a specific type of dead animal, quite possibly with exposed gastrointestinal subassemblies, and it turns out to be just a tire, you get bummed!
I mean, it's almost fun to see the rotting remains of an animal, and figure out what it used to be. It's a little bit like closure. You have about one second to reconstruct and define an animal by its rigormortisized parts. A posthumous puzzle, if you will.
I just love to hear all the animal rights activists bleeding to "save the animals." Ya? Well, when was the last time you saw a wild animal? And what condition was it in? Was it prancing through the forest, or delicately chewing leaves from a young sapling, damp with morning dew? No! It was probably lying on its back with one leg sticking up and the other three walking like an E-gyp-tian!
As if you couldn't tell, I'm not an animal rights activist. But let us stress the word "activist." I'm more likely to plow into an oak tree trying to avoid an animal than many of you. As soon as I see those eyes catching light, I just put myself in its shoes.
"Hum, dee dum dum. Well.., I can't get to sleep. Maybe I'll just cross the road here and get some chow. Dum dee dum, AHHHH!"
I wonder what it looks like to a possum when his life flashes before his eyes.
(sobbing) "And then there was that time that I was just sleeping, and my parents thought I was dead, and they started laughing...(sob, sniff). And then that one time I was playing dead and my brother started throwing rocks at me, saying that if I was dead, I shouldn't care (sniff)."
It's all a horrid experience, running over possums or squirrels or skunks. It really wrecks my day when I mash up a little vermin.
And those little rascals only make you feel bad. Anything bigger than a cocker spaniel can cost money. And some of you out there have hit a German shepherd or two, or even a deer. As far as I'm concerned, those are blessings compared to grillpacking a bear or an elk. Now that costs big dollars!
But not everyone lives that way. It just so happens that someone I know drives (or aims, as it were) a thirty-ot Toyota named, "The Elkbeater." To the very best of my knowledge, when I sat down to the dinner table for a venison feast, the beast was slain purely by accident. And maybe it was the room's ambience of an all-male guest list including Jack Daniel's and Ted Nugent that provoked my friend into saying, "Now that I've got that truck, we won't go hungry."
Hard to say. I only try to hit cats.