When I got home from the fire department drill last night the garage door for the Del Sol was open, which I thought was kind of odd. When I got into the house, Lori told me why. She had hit a deer on her way home on Hwy 211. She seemed shaken but she was totally ok.

After seeing my last experience with a deer strike where it totaled the car, I was fearing the worst. Especially since just last week in a budget cutting move I had decided to drop the collision and comprehensive on the Del Sol.

So I was quite amazed when I got a look at the car. The damage is minimal. The headlight is broken, but still works, the turn signal light is broken but still works, the driving light got pushed back and for some reason doesn’t work, and the hood is a bit buckled but that may resolve itself when I get the headlight back where it’s supposed to be. I guess there are some advantages to driving a low slung sports car. The contact point would have been with the deer’s legs rather than its body. Lori was also very lucky in that she caught the tail end of the deer as it was crossing in front of her from left to right.

In over 30 years of driving, Lori has been the safest driver I know. She’s never had an accident, nor has she even received a ticket. (oh wait, there was that little touch and go in our extremely narrow garage in South San Francisco) But she has been unfortunate to cross paths with deer twice.

The first incident came during our honeymoon, and any of you who have known us for a while have probably heard the honeymoon story. It’s a long story, filled with all kinds of disasters, from a skiing accident that left blood stains in the snow, to setting her bathrobe on fire. But the deer portion of the story is that we went out to dinner for her birthday and on the way home I let her drive the ’69 El Camino that we had just recently bought. Honeymooning on a motorcycle in the middle of the winter wasn’t an option.

So on the way home out jumps Bambi and before she even has much of a chance to react, there’s an impact. Bambi jumps back up and disappears into the woods. Lori pulls over and wants to go rescue the injured Bambi, bless her animal loving heart. But it’s pitch black outside, and we’re in a wooded hilly section and for all I know, it could be a 100 ft. drop off the side of the road. So I had to hang onto her to keep her from going over the edge.

Then a bunch of other disasters happen and finally we decide to cut the honeymoon short and we head home. More disaster ensues. We get home exhausted and I call my mom to let her know we’re back. She wants us to come over and open our wedding presents. We are not the happy couple at this point and so it takes some sweet talking from mom before we finally acquiesce.

One of the first presents Lori opens is a little brass paper weight in the shape of a fawn. She breaks down in tears, leaving everyone else but me with a puzzled expression on their face.

So last night I asked her if maybe she was ready to give venison another try. The next deer that decides to make a dessert out of her Taboo roses, better have a good escape plan.