JP vs. Dead Deer

You would think driving 9+ years you would have probably seen everything that needs to be seen that involves you and the open road. Some may be considered bragging rights when you know that you are the only person that has ran over a dead deer and more importantly got pulled over by the cops but the passenger was the one who got the ticket. LETS BACK UP!!!! Dead Deer you say??? HA!!

You would think that living in Northern Minnesota and driving on poor, isolated two lane highways that run between state forests would probably make you believe that running into deer would not be that uncommon. But truth to be told, I have not once in my 4 and a half years of living and driving up north, hit a deer, but lets not knock on wood yet. My senior year, I decided to spend some of my holiday time with my newborn nephew here in the Twin Cities, so I drove the 4-hour trip with no complaints. No doubt leaving on a Friday night going up north on the interstate was not the smartest thing to do, not with a million other cars coming up north to their cabins. The un-thinkable happened on Interstate 94, 3 lanes of traffic, all going at a steady pace of 65mph. I was on the far left lane when I saw something big and hairy lying on my side of the road. I only reacted enough to make sure I hit it straight on, and make sure that I do NOT try and swerve out of the way. That would just be plain stupid with that amount of traffic. I ran over what felt like a 10ft square speed bump and heard nothing but a loud booming noise coming from somewhere beneath my car. When I hit the sucker, I had enough brains to check my rearview mirror to see if my sudden braking would cause a huge car pile up but all I saw was a trucks headlights bob up and down figuring he must of ran over the deer too.

I quickly parked on the side of the road and got out, I also noticed the truck also stopped right behind me. The first thing he said was “Are you ok?” Sure I was fine but my shaking hands told me different. I still had my car running and the booming sound was still there so I thought something happened to the engine, and of course I was wrong. The deer took apart my muffler. I finally got settled down enough to try and get back on the road but the fun wasn’t over yet. If anyone has ever driven a car with no muffler you know you feel my pain. Talk about LOUD! All you hear when you press down the accelerator is the loud booming sound and the constant vibrations on your body. The tough part was I still had 2 and a half hours left of driving ahead of me. Forget playing music, forget trying to stay sane, all you can do is just think “how white trash can I get?” I rolled down my windows to avoid the constant humming in my ears but found out quickly that was the 5th worst mistake of the day. The air suddenly made me want to vomit. Apparently I not only ran over the dead deer, I dragged the carcass just enough so some of the hair and flesh hung up on the bottom of my overheated car. I’m not just getting a giant headache from the non-existing muffler, but I’m getting nauseas from the burnt deer meat smell.

When I came back home to tell my parents, they all laughed at me and asked me why I didn’t bring any venison home. Hardy har har! But this story doesn’t end here, the most hilarious part was giving my car to my Dad’s mechanic, of course he knows him well so it was even more funny. He put my car on the hoist, lifted it up and put it back down again. He took one look at his assistant and told him. “Hose this piece of shit down!!” There was still meat and hair underneath my car in clumps!!! All wedged in every place possible!! I swear we would have to pay extra for that, but luckily he just warned us to never bring a car in like that again.