Photo by pranam gurung on unsplash
The half-moon had that hazy summer heat aura, giving the sky a misty glow as we rode home at 10 PM last night.
The air was scented with something flowery and we were in the Miata convertible. We rounded a corner only to brake hard, gasping at the green glowing eyes of a black dog in the middle of the road. We honked at him and he looked at us like, “You talking to me? Huh? You want a piece of me or what?” He never budged an inch. We drove around him on the grass as he swiveled his head keeping those indignant, bulging eyes on us.
This morning I looked for his body by the side of the road as I drove through the heavy July rain. Apparently he’d backed down everyone else and they’d driven around him too.
As I drove through the rain, I started playing a form of reverse whack-a-mole with the turtles that’d crawled onto the road. They had a mission to accomplish and were trucking across the road, shells held high. It must be like when your basement floods and you’re like, “Aw crap, I gotta get all this stuff off the floor and get some buckets and a mop and move all the furniture to higher ground.” Only the turtles are carrying their basements ON THEIR BACKS.
Locals driving a country road here ignore something in the roadway, preferring to just blast over it. Except maybe dogs and deer. Both can cause body damage to your vehicle and we wouldn’t want that now would we?
But here’s the thing: people here will stop IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD to chat with someone, check out something in the rear of their truck, look at something on the side of the road that was flung off when someone else took a sharp corner too fast, or to just get out for a stretch.
Pulling out of roads and driveways without looking is a national pastime. Driving in the middle of the road is the way of our people.
Am I complaining? No. Okay, well yes but only because it feels foreign to me to do this stuff. Here’s a recent road adventure: At one of the houses on the ridge, two teen boys were stripped down to their shorts and having a kickboxing/fistfight in the middle of the road. We stopped as we came upon them and the adults watching from the side of the road glared at us like we were intruding. They waved us around the brawl as the fighters continued to bob and weave, using the whole road. The crowd looked at us like we’d driven through their back yard leaving ruts and they were pissed. And these were the adults in the situation.
My question is: who gave these roadkill, road hog maniacs the god card to run over turtles, snakes, raccoons, possums, cats, fox, toads, birds and more and drive and/or park in the middle of the road? I’ve seen people run over snakes, stop and BACK UP over the snake again. And isn’t it startling to see a big old pick up reversing at top speed in your lane as you come around a corner, just so they can get another whack at that snake!
I guess I’m the misfit in the crowd. I have a tender heart for all these animals who are just trying to get to the other side of the road. Like that chicken of joke fame. Oh, but I know how that joke goes around these parts: Why did the chicken cross the road? To show the ‘possom it could be done! Or maybe the turtle.
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