Bambi's Revenge

It was the weirdest thing.

Mark and I were driving back yesterday from a long weekend, which included watching Sam's last cross-country race of his college career as well as visiting Mark's nearly-100-year-old Aunt Trudy.

The drive home was long. Really long. Hours and hours long.

There are spots on the map where it's quite remote. No cell phone service. The radio plays neither NPR nor good oldies stations, just garbled static. Except, of course, for the ones put on the air by the "Christian" religious right.

We're both too spiritual to listen to those.

So, what's to do while we're driving along looking at scenery until it's too dark to do even that?

Well, I like to play 20 questions, and Mark good-naturedly humors me.

I make him ask enough thoughtful questions to be able to come up with "wedding ring" (mineral) or "King Kong" (animal).

His ultimate answers to my almost-always-fewer-than-20 questions?

The grass in Yankee Stadium (vegetable).

Hemorroids (animal?).

Yeah.

Which brings me back to my first sentence in this blog. It was the weirdest thing.

It was my turn, and he was choking. My answer was "Bambi" and he could not get it. He was down to knowing it was an animated Disney forest animal, title character of a film.

He could not come up with Bambi! I was simultaneously laughing, gloating, and feeling sad for the childhood he surely must have missed.

He finally gave up and I had to tell him. He wouldn't admit it, but I know he felt sheepish. And of course I made it worse by betting him that both of our kids would get it immediately if I sent them a text message when we were next within range of a tower, giving them only the information that the answer was a Disney forest animal, title character of a film.

My phone buzzed back twice within 1 minute of sending that text. "Bambi" on the screen from both offspring.

Whew! I'm relieved they at least had a normal childhood!

Now, here's the weirdest thing:

Just a couple of hours later, going on midnight, when we were within three miles of home, a big-antlered buck jumped into the road out of nowhere, right in front of us. Mark swerved hard to miss it, but still struck it a glancing blow. I, of course, was screaming.

We stopped and got out. Our dog was shaking, but unhurt in the back seat. Mark and I were both fine, just shaken up as well. The buck got up and continued walking to the other side of the road, didn't appear to be limping. But it was dark and we really couldn't see. It disappeared into the brush.

Mark's quick reaction and hard swerve probably saved it's life, and maybe even our own.

Our 12-year-old car is probably totaled. Lots of front end damage, and the passenger-side door doesn't open right. So now we'll be on the getting-estimates trail, and then most likely watching the classifieds for another reliable vehicle.

But I'll bet he'll never forget about Bambi again.