The Deer part 1

Right now, I'm sitting in a hotel room in some town called Tomah, Wisconsin, two and a half hours from my home, and a hell of a lot in the middle of nowhere, with a towel wrapped in ice on my face and my two best friends passed the f out on their respective beds. Leigh is actually so on my side of the bed I can't even really sit on the edge. It's 10:14am, and those of you who know me would know that this is an ungodly hour for me, and I'm dead to the world most days until 2pm. I can't sleep now, though, my face is throbbing and my ears are ringing.

i woke up half an hour ago because of the face pain, leigh's tying of herself into a human knot on my side of the bed, and because it was hard to really believe what happened last night. Here is a (long) synopsis.

i had just taken over driving from natasja, who was sitting in the front seat after we'd gotten a full tank of gas. we were driving in amiable silence except for the usual strange noises that leigh makes with her moving mouthparts. i think she was speaking. not sure though. Not listening.

the deer came upon us (or us upon the deer) so suddenly that there was no space for any intentional movement. all that i saw was a silhouette of a white, glowing, almost surreal, deer shaped object (i then quite cleverly assumed that it was, in fact, a deer) flying towards my face. it was really quite the experience. how many times in your life do you get to a see an object that large and that stupid fly towards your face at 65 (ahem, 75+) mph? the answer, hopefully not often.

i digress. i do that a lot. right after i saw the deer hit the front of my car, the airbags shot out at the speed of a freaking charging bull and punched me right in the face. so there you go. two large things coming at my face at high speeds in one night. someone hates me. i don't remember what i did next, but smoke was coming out of the air conditioning units and people were coughing and yelling that we should get out of the car. i supposed that i should follow this advice so i opened the door. apparently the car was still moving (i don't know whose fault this was) and i sort of half stepped, half rolled out of the car. Apparently leigh and tash were both attempting to exit the vehicle as I rolled out, leaving the car accelerating down into the ditch with them in it, stopping only at the heroic road sign that sacrificed its own verticality for their lives!

more of the story later...the exciting middle of the story! soon!