Bears and Bobcats and Such

Last night a friend visiting from Galax (not exactly NYC, but apparently a buzzing metropolis compared to where I live) and I went over the mountain to dine out.  I drove.  That, enough, was cause for concern.  I thought I was driving reasonably, well within the speed limit.  Helen, however, experienced a ride of terror.

Then there was the deer.  Dead.  In the middle of our lane.  I swerved and missed all but a hoof of the carcass.  Crisis averted.  Then I stopped at the nearest house to ask if they’d call the sheriff about moving the carcass (I wasn’t dressed for the occasion and probably couldn’t have managed the dead weight on my own anyhow).  Back in the car, I noticed Helen’s wonderment.  “That’s how you do it.”  “Do what?” I asked.  “Take care of something like that.”  “Yep, that’s how you do it,” I replied.  Actually, moving it out of the way yourself is how you do it – shame on whoever left it there for me to come upon.

A little ways on, I asked, “did you see that?”  “What?”  “The bear,” I replied, having noticed a bear scooting into the undergrowth on the right of the road.  “No!  And I’m glad I didn’t!” was Helen’s somewhat chagrined reply.  Truly baffled, I considered my own delight at spotting yet another ‘bear in the woods’ and wondered at Helen’s dismay.

Helen:  “The next thing you know, we’ll see a lion.”  Me: “no lions.  A bobcat, maybe; but no lions”, meaning to be reassuring.  Somehow my words had the opposite effect I’d intended.

Off to dinner, good conversation and lots of laughter, as we got back in the car to return home, Helen put on her heavy coat saying that now we could safely return, since she was wearing her ‘lion coat’, as she put her right arm forward in a protective posture.

We laughed and laughed all the way home – no bobcats, more’s the pity.  Helen was ready.