Oh Deer!

The deer in Central Illinois are either explosive, suicidal, or just plain stupid.

I'm not sure why, and I don't exactly know what it means, but in here in the flatness that is Central Illinois, vehicles don't hit deer on the roadways; rather, they seem to cause deer to explode. Growing up in Iowa made me all to accustomed the not-so-random deer "near-miss" while driving. It was a nightly ocurance around dusk in the fall. I learned quickly that I needed to actively look out for them at all times when driving. It was not uncommon to see a deer carcass laying along the side of the road or in a ditch somewhere, nor was it uncommon to have to break to not hit one.

What I didn't see very often was what can only be described as a "splat" mark on the interstate that is the remnant of a once live deer. This is what we have in Central Illinois. I have some theories as to why this is:

• Deer don't get hit at all. They seem to become so frightened at the sight of an oncoming vehicle, they they internally combust and explode. I propose this is caused by the Illinois varieties of corn and soybeans, which seem to be grown more for energy purposes than consumption in modern times. Apparantly an 86-octane ethanol blend in a deer that is scared $*%@-less causes an explosion and resulting mess all over the highway. I haven't had time to test this theory to scale yet, but given the soybean content of our cat's food, and the concentration of "funk" that seems to be eeking out of her butt on a regular basis, I think it's just a matter of time before all of the data is in.

• Deer are suicidal. How do I know this? Well, the other night when I was driving home from a recent football game, around 11:00pm , a deer walked, not jumped or ran, out into the middle of my lane on the highway, stood straight up facing me head-on, and attempted to bite the big one. I was moving along at around 75mph and I didn't see him until my low beams met his eyes, which was far too close to have time to think. I know it was a "he" because he had a large rack of antlers... and because it was obvious his nagging deer-wife was the one who drove him into his current state of being. Anyway, my hand managed to make the car swerve violently and recover just in time to avoid the creation of yet another deer "splat". I say my "hand" because I'm not convinced my brain had anything to do with it, which I guess is a good thing, but maybe not either. This marks the third time I've had to put the car against an impromptu driving test. So far, its record is 3-0. If I don't write another blog for a long long time, the record has probably become 3-1. I'm reminded of a movie...
  

• Deer are stupid. I really have no way to back up this idea, but given the number of stupid people in the world, I see no reason that there can't be equally stupid deer. Most people can't walk and talk at the same time, and they only have two legs to control, whereas a deer has four. Of course, deer don't talk either, but maybe they're doing something else that is dually perplexing, like chewing gum, sniffing for food, or being shot at.

Or, is this all just some kind of a conspiracy hatched at the North Pole by the big man in red and his 8 elitist deer (Reindeer that is) in order to continue the hard-fisted rule of Christmas sleigh-pulling dominance. Hmmm.... talk amongst yourselves...