Perpetual Ruminations

Tuesday

Up before time started this morning. Yeah, I was up at 3:30 so that I could be to work by 5:00 when time starts. It's difficult, but sometimes there's just no other way. Not that I mind getting up early, I just need to get to sleep the night before I do it.

I normally work nights, and get home around 11:00 or a little after, grab a bite to eat and watch a little television while the food settles and I unwind. As a result, I often do not get to bed until about 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. I've been working at trying to get to bed by midnight, but I haven't been real successful.

So, last night it's no different, I try and relax and find I'm not even tired yet. By midnight, I'm beginning to get a little stressed, knowing I I will be up in about three hours, and that only makes it more difficult to go to sleep. Sometime around 12:30 I head off to bed, tired now, but kind of worked up knowing I will not get more than three hours of sleep. this results in difficulty falling to sleep, but I manage. The next think I know, I'm waking up and wondering what time it is.

I get up and head off to the bathroom, then check the clock on the way back to bed. It's a little past two, I still get to sleep for another hour. Luckily, I didn't have any trouble getting back to sleep, but it sure was difficult getting up this morning. I did drag my semi-exhausted carcass out of bed, drank a cup of coffee and checked the weather. Cold and wet, and staying that way all day.

This made the idea of crawling back into bed even more tempting, but I got dressed and drove in to work. I have a thirty minute drive into town and work. five miles or so into my journey, I'm relaxed and lulled by the tempo of the wipers, the whir of the fan blowing warm air onto the windshield, and the motion of the van. That's when this big deer decides to jump from the ditch and race me for the side of the road.

Luckily, I was more alert than one would have guessed. I seen the deer out of my peripheral vision and swerved hard to the right avoiding impact with the deer. However, not having any shoulder to the road means there is little room to the right to swerve, so even as I miss running into the deer, I feel the front tires on the passenger side begin to dip over the lip of the road.

Instinctively I steer to the left to avoid going into the right ditch. and even as the tires slide over wet asphalt I feel the van begin to correct it's course and move towards the left side of the road. The motion is so quick, that the lighter back end has trouble following the corrections of the front, and I find myself driving passed a still moving deer, with the van leaning hard to the right, the back end going into a skid towards the right ditch, and the deer brushing against the rear fender.

Now, it's time to try and correct the skid as I find myself heading for the left ditch with the front and the rear still carried by momentum into the right ditch. I steer, more gently this time to the right, into the skid and feel the rear tires begin to grip the wet road. As the right tire gains traction it begins to hang on the lip of the road, but soon enough it's free and the back is now trying to catch up to the front. Because I did not over-correct the skid, the back does fall in line with the front, and I am almost inline with the road once again. Another minor correction and it's as if nothing had even happened.

The rest of the ride to work was uneventful, I was on time and had to wait for a few minutes to even get inside. It was pretty slow, so I had an easy morning and even got to work on a corrective action as well as an evaluation. Then, at 10:00, or a little after, I drove home and took myself a nice nap. This afternoon, when Rhonda was leaving for work, I walked her out to the van and told her of my deer incident. Upon looking at the rear fender, there is a slight little dent, close to the back of the vehicle, on the driver's side. Right where the deer ran into the van.

Apparently, I had better reflexes and traction than did this fury woodland creature. Even so, the damage is minimal, barely even dented. The impact must have been very slight, and I did not see the deer go down. I watched on my way home for any signs of the deer; none. I'm assuming it has a nice headache to remember me by, and I hope, to teach it a little about looking before you leap~