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| Aleta Kaylee and the Infamous Cynthia Kay |
I don’t understand how I manage it, but every vehicle I’ve ever purchased has been an animal magnet. The vehicles aren’t really choosy about any particular animal; they will run over or into anything at all. I have hit dogs, cats, raccoons, opossums, birds, buzzards, a gator, an otter, and several deer. And it doesn’t have to be me driving. About a week after I purchased my last car, a raccoon came out of the woods, passed in front of another car, and ran right in front of my car while Rheba was driving. That should have told me that once again, I had purchased an animal magnet.
Years ago, while driving my Toyota Corolla on the job, I was headed to Cedar Key. Just before I got to Otter Creek, a big gator came out of the ditch, right in front of me. Bump, scrape, bump. I thought I had taken out the whole underneath of my car. I stopped and there in the ditch was the gator. I couldn’t get out to check under my car, because I was scared the gator might still be alive. I went to Martin’s Store, and told them what had happened, checked under my car, and continued on my way to Cedar Key. When I came back, the gator was gone, leaving me to surmise that either he was just stunned, or someone enjoyed some gator tail for supper.
Another time, as I was leaving work, headed for home, just outside of Bronson, an otter came scurrying up the ditch, onto the road. You guessed it, right in front of my car. In my rearview, I saw him roll a couple of times, hit the ditch and scurry back towards the woods. This time, I didn’t stop.
Once, in my work truck, as I was traveling on HWY 339, a buzzard flew in front of me, cracked the windshield and clipped off the passenger-side mirror. I stopped and picked up the mirror, but could not bring myself to pick up that buzzard and throw him in the back of the truck. I considered it, so I could prove what had happened to the truck, but decided they would just have to take my word for it.
Then, one Christmas season, I was headed to Crystal River to shop. At that point, I owned a teal, Chevy Astro van. For some reason, I had to go into Chiefland. I was cutting through the Walmart parking lot. A dog distracted me for a moment and I uprooted a stop sign, and got hung up on the huge concrete boulder that surrounded the stop sign pole. By hung up, I mean I could no longer go forward (Daughter’s Note—I was in the car, and she kept TRYING to go forward, to get off of the concrete…it was quite the spectacle.) Rolling on top of that piece of concrete made my van sound like a front-end loader scraping up rocks. Of course, there were 2 or 3 RVs parked at that end of the parking lot. Several people ran out of their RV to see what had happened. There I sat, on top of the stop sign and boulder, with my front bumper very dented. My thought was “What is Jackie going to say about this?” One of the men that ran over assessed the situation. With a bit of a language barrier, we understood this: “Oh no! could break oil pan! No oil…ruin motor. Big money!!” He helped me back up off of the boulder and I hurried to the service station to have the van checked out. No problem underneath the van, just the huge dent in the bumper. Did I go home and show Jackie? No!! I went on my planned shopping trip and told him later. The dent was never fixed as long as I owned the van. Had that been Jackie’s vehicle, the bumper would have been fixed. However, it didn’t bother me….I guess I wear my scars proudly.
When Jackie was so sick after a chemo treatment, I had to drive him to the doctor. Now, let me say here…that in all of our married life, any time we went somewhere together, Jackie climbed behind the wheel. It was just automatic. But because he was so sick, this time, I was driving. Even so sick, he was trying to tell me how to drive. Later that same week, on my way to work, I dodged some glass bottles on the road, but hit the cooler. It was a bad time for me, and I was pretty preoccupied. I intended to check out the front of my car when I got to work, but I forgot. When I got home that afternoon, my daughter found the dent in the front. She came in and caught me aside (not wanting to say anything to upset Jackie), “What in the world did you hit with your car??” I asked, “What are you talking about?” She said, “How did you get that big dent?” I asked, “What??....Oh. I hit a Styrofoam cooler on my way to work this morning.” Looking at me in disbelief, she said “There was nothing Styrofoam about that cooler if that’s what dented your car.” I know it had to be bad. As I said…I was sort of preoccupied. IT was not Styrofoam. It was a thick, plastic Igloo cooler. --Maybe I should explain that my father never taught me to jerk the steering wheel to swerve and miss something, you could lose control and overcorrect or wreck. So I figure, it’s best to just plow on through.—Jackie never saw that damage, he was hospitalized the next day, and lived the last 35 days of his life in the hospital.
About a month after he died, I hit a deer on HWY 339 coming home from Gainesville with the girls. I called my brother-in-law, and the Highway Patrol. I had not gotten my car fixed from the cooler incident and now I had a bigger dent across the hood, and the car was no longer drivable. Right after I hit the deer, as I was waiting on FHP, a truck stopped and asked us what had happened. We told them that we had hit a deer. They asked where we actually hit the deer. We pointed down the road and they went to that spot, jumped out of the truck, loaded up the deer and took off! When the Patrolman arrived, we told him what had happened. He was disappointed. He was fixing to get off work and had planned on taking the deer.
After that, my Mazda got fixed, and looked good as new—for a while. Rheba later totaled it, rolling end over end one night. A story for another time.
Last year, while heading to Gainesville to visit my brother, I hit another deer inside the city limits of Trenton. I haven’t decided if these animals around my area like living on the edge and taking chances; but I’m beginning to believe in the theory of “survival of the fittest (or fastest).” Because I’ve only told you of the hits, there are a bunch of close misses in my past.
Back to the beginning…my kids make fun of my driving. I can find every bump in the road, every pot hole. In fact, my driveway has deep ruts and my car drags at the end of the driveway every day. Friday night, as we were leaving Miraku’s, I hit a bump leaving. Aleta claimed it was the curb, Rheba just said it was a big speed bump. And the laughing and ribbing about my driving began again. I simply said “Haters gonna hate.” I can’t figure out why they fell out laughing again…
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