Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Day 195: No socks

Okay, so I'm not showing socks on this one because I'm actually adding this from a computer that is not my own. Therefore, this computer houses none of my sock photos.

But, this is a story for the day/week/two weeks/whenever I wrote last. Forgive me.

Here goes:

I have this life that is sometimes unbelievable to me. I wouldn’t change that for anything. I like the excitement. I like the drama even, sometimes. I don’t crave it, but I like having things to deal with, things to keep me busy.

What I don’t like is killing things. No, not killing them, but badly injuring them. That is too much drama for me. However, this is exactly what I did yesterday.

I am working outside the city this week and am, therefore, commuting. It’s about a 40 minute drive, mainly on highways and secondary highways. Highway driving lends itself to specific dangers, such as a wheel blowing up, or an engine overheating. Perhaps one of the most common highway dangers is the danger of hitting an animal. Mostly people hit squirrels, gophers, birds, or the odd rabbit. But why would I hit one of those? No. For my first murder (or almost murder), I decide to go big. And flat. And hit a badger. A BADGER. I’ve never even seen a badger before yesterday. This thing was HUGE.


 This is obviously not the one I hit (I don't think!), but this is what they look like.

So there I am on a secondary highway, cruising along in the sunshine, music playing, cruise control set around 85km/h in an 80km/h zone. I literally did not see the badger at all until after I hit it. Cruising along and BANG and then what feels like I ran over a massive speed bump. I screamed bloody murder, as it completely terrified me. My eyes shot to my rearview mirror and I saw this huge animal curled into a ball on the road. I knew what I had done. I had murdered an innocent animal.

I quickly pulled over to the side of the road and put my hazard lights on, just in time to begin crying my eyes out. Because, what else was I going to do? I couldn’t go pick it up, it was big. I didn’t want to get out of my car because the next guy behind me might run over me like I ran over the poor badger. As I was contemplating how awful of a human I am for not seeing the animal before hitting it, I look in the rearview mirror again and, I kid you not, see the badger uncurl itself from the ball and try to DRAG ITSELF TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. It was obviously in misery. It was obviously in pain, barely clinging to its little life. The waterworks turned on full tilt now. I LOST MY MIND.

I could have lived with myself if I had killed it. At least it would have been fast and over. But no, I brutally wound the animal so that it has to peel itself off the pavement and drag itself to the side of the road and disappear into the grass of the ditch. I cried basically the whole way home.

I really hope I never hit another animal in my life. I feel like a bad person! Please forgive me little badger, I didn’t see you. :(

1 comment:

  1. Oh Lydia - I am so sad for you! That would totally be me bawling my eyes out. You poor thing :-(
    Doe

    ReplyDelete

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