I Hate Deer!

I know that is a very politically incorrect statement, but it is true. I hate them. To me, a deer is like a giant rat with antlers. They shit in my back yard, eat people’s gardens and are a hazard to drivers everywhere.

Because I live and work in the mountains, I accept the fact that I am going to see the occasional deer. I also accept the fact that I am going to have to do some deer-dodging as I drive to and from work. However, I do not accept the fact that the deer have taken control of my neighborhood. Saturday evening I was driving to the grocery store and right there, in the middle of my street, there was an entire herd of deer. There were nine in total. NINE! Just standing in the middle of the street. It was like a deer cocktail party. They were just hanging out, waiting to run some poor person off the road. I think we should be alarmed that the deer are forming gangs, obviously with the sole intent of forcing drivers off the road.

As a concerned citizen, I am proposing that deer be hunted year round. It’s really much more humane if you think about it. If I were a deer I would rather be shot by some redneck and killed quickly, than run over by a car and left to bleed to death on the side of the road. It’s a win / win situation. The deer wouldn’t die horrible, bloody, disgusting deaths. They would stop wrecking innocent commuters’ vehicles. And their mangled, broken bodies wouldn’t be littering the sides of the highway making people sick.

Early last summer I was driving home from work and made a very disturbing discovery. I found out what the state does with the dead animal bodies. They load the carcasses into large open trailers and tow them to the dump. I had the misfortune of being stuck behind one of these trailers. I thought, “Certainly that can’t be a giant trailer filled to the top with dead animals.” Sure enough, that is exactly what I was looking at. As I got closer to the trailer I was able to make out bits and pieces of dead deer, moose and elk. A leg here, an antler there. A bloody eyeball stared at me.

As the trailer of death slowed for a traffic light, the smell of decomposing animal snuck into my car. At the very same moment the smell entered the car, the trailer in front of me hit a bump. All the carcasses slowly heaved upward and then slowly settled back down. As the mass of bodies shifted, one of the deer legs that had been sticking up into the air suddenly folded over into a right angle. The broken bone was sticking out, there was slime oozing from the torn flesh around the bone. The leg continued to swing and bounce as the trailer came to a stop.

I must preface this next statement by saying that I have a very strong stomach. Blood doesn’t bother me. I love shows that involve real life plastic surgery. Real Life in the E.R. on The Learning Channel is one of my favorite shows. I have driven past hundreds of dead deer in my life, and even driven through pools of blood from deer that had just been hit. None of this bothered me. I just thought, “Stupid deer…” and kept driving. When I saw that jagged broken leg, bouncing to and fro I almost threw up. I have never been so disgusted by something in my life. Not even Star Jones. And that is saying volumes!