By Ryan Berry
Ryan’s World
I find some comfort when I hear from other people and they share similar situations they have had with their family. Knowing that I’m not alone fills my heart with joy. It also means y’all are as screwed up as we are.
I am not a hunter and I’m not against hunting. In fact, I believe hunters play an important role in keeping the population of certain animals at an acceptable level. Unfortunately, there were not enough hunters in the area between State Route 49 and State Route 503 on U.S. Route 40 this past hunting season.
A few days ago, my wife came into the house with panic in her voice. If you’ve read any of my columns, or know either of my children, you can understand that I am an expert in picking up her subtle clues to know when she is panicking. Wheel comes off her car while she’s driving (twice and both times my fault) – panic; child knocked out when she falls down the steps at Boonshoft Museum – panic; when she’s driving and thinks she made a wrong turn somewhere and we’re going into Mexico because we are at a Border Patrol checkpoint – panic; anytime I’m driving and she’s not watching Tik Toks or playing games on her phone – panic.
The words my wife spoke to me that night will live in my memory for a long, long time (or at least until way pay the deductible). She came running into the house and shouted, “Come look at my car. I hit a deer.” I calmly dried my hands with a dish towel because I was being a good husband and washing dishes at the time. She rushed out of the door ahead of me to inspect the damage. I continued to remain calm and tried to process what I was going to see.
There was a decent amount of damage to the passenger side front corner of the car and the headlight housing was pretty much destroyed. The bright side is that no one was seriously injured, including the deer she hit. Well, I don’t know if the deer was injured or not. It didn’t stick around long enough for us to go get x-rays. It got up and ran away.
By now you’re probably thinking, “This is lame. Millions of people hit deer. How does this make your family special or different from anybody else?” C’mon, what do you take me for? Do you really think I would write a column about this boring and mundane topic if there wasn’t a kicker?
Would it help if I pointed out the crash took place only a few days after we spent nearly $500 to get my wife’s windshield replaced? Fortunately, the deer did not crack or damage the windshield. That continues to be money well spent.
That wasn’t much of a kicker either. Let’s see if this works better, but I need to give some background.
My oldest daughter is possibly artistic. I say “possibly” because art is subjective. What you think is art, I might think is the canvas you were using to get the excess paint off your brush.
A few years ago, she began using deer mounts and other taxidermy animals as a canvas. She purchases the mounts, paints, dyes and includes a variety of accessories to complete the vision in her head. My personal favorites are the tiger striped deer and the pink squirrel.
She has been kicked off of a rummage sale Facebook page because her artistry was too much for some deer head traditionalists. To kindly paraphrase some of the comments, a deer should look like a deer while it’s hanging on your wall. I imagine some of those who commented also have wood paneling and green shag carpet to replicate the deer’s natural habitat.
How does this relate to the deer crash part of the story? My oldest daughter asked my wife to go with her to pick up a deer mount. They were on their way to pick up a deer mount when they had a deer mounted on the hood of my wife’s van. It really is hard to say this is a coincidence.
If you would like to seen an incredible reenactment of the crash, my oldest daughter used the deer mount she purchased to show me what happened. You can find the video on my personal Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ryan.k.berry.3/videos/704787004634455 or visit my Ryan’s World page at https://www.facebook.com/Ryans.world.1.
I really wish I was making this stuff up.
