I ran over some sort of animal last night. I had just picked up my friend Kathy, and we were headed towards a certain East LA bar with questionable hipster-ties, when something dashed in front of my car. I braked hard and my car rumbled as it drove directly over whatever fuzzy little creature with a death wish had just kamikazed himself beneath my tires. I came to a complete stop a few feet away, and buried my face in my hands while some ungodly squelch of horror came out of me.
My thoughts went something like this: "oh my god i just killed someones poor little kitty, i can't drive away i'm going to have to get out and knock on doors until i find the owner and some little girl is going to scream at me for killing her cat but why the fuck is this cat outdoors on a busy street oh my god i want to go hug Elvis right now i hope he's okay [peeking in the rear view mirror] OH MY GOD IT'S LITTLE HIND LEG IS DOING SOME HORRIBLE ZOMBIE-LIKE GIMP THING AS HE TRIES TO PICK HIMSELF UP OFF THE ASPHALT!!!! AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
Kathy had me pull off the street and promised to investigate, all the while soothingly telling me that she was pretty certain it wasn't a cat at all, but some sort of evil raccoon (which isn't much better, because I have a secret fantasy of having a raccoon as a pet, but it is better than a cat). But really, even I know that raccoons/skunks/possums don't run as fast as this little fuzzball did when my car pwn3d him...but I told her to lie to me and tell me it wasn't a cat.
"It's gone," she said, "and I'm pretty certain it wasn't a cat."
"Are you suuuure???" I cried to her. "Do you promise it wasn't a cat but oh my god lie to me and tell me even if you're not sure, okay??? Tell meee (but don't tell me)."
"Wasn't a cat," she repeated as she climbed back into my car. "And it ran off, so I'm sure it's okay," she told me authoritatively.
We drove off, and I wanted to cry. But more than a good cry, I needed a stiff drink. Halfway through my first Jameson on the rocks, we laughed about it and marveled at how stupid that animal [raccoon] was to literally dart directly underneath my car. When I got home though, I hugged my cat tight, knowing that whatever I had surely fatally maimed, was running too fast to be anything but a cat.
Monday, May 11, 2009
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10 comments:
At first, I was hoping it had been a hipster you had run over. This would have been a much happier story if that had been the case.
Also, raccoons can be fast little bastards (according to the Oregon State University website, they can run up to 15 mph), and they're resilient as hell... I've known people who've had "tamed" raccoons as pets, when you get a house of your own, you should look into adopting one.
Hopefully your reaction was more subdued than this.
:-( That sucks hun, I once ran over a bilby with babies in it's pouch, I still feel guilty about that but there was nothing I could do, it jumped under my car :-(
Augh! I've done that before, too, except I hit it on a really busy off-ramp, so couldn't go back to investigate. Instead, I cried all the way home.
Damn homeless people. (Kidding! It was really a cat. I think.)
Oh noooooo!!! I would die... this is why my new kitties are going to be INDOOR kitties! You poor thing, I don't know WHAT I would do. :-(
Jake - Oh no, I would never tell anyone if/when I ran over a hipster. Thank you for the raccoon facts...I feel better now about convincing myself that I didn't run over a cat. Also, someday I will tame a raccoon. Watch.
Greg - I'm scared to clink on that link. Is it p0rn? It's p0rn, isn't it? Okay, I'll click on it...haaaaaaaaaaaa! That was awesome (and sadly very much like how I reacted).
Rich - Awww. Yeah, that one will stick with you. Perhaps one of the babies was a future Hitler-type and you just saved the human race from total annihilation...or something.
Redhead - "Damn homeless people" - hahahaha
But yeah, boo on the hit-and-run.
LiLu - Yeah, no way in hell would I have an outdoor cat. Although I feed the stray kitties in my neighborhood, but that's just cause I loooove them and want them to be miiiine.
And I think you would have done the exact same thing as me: gotten a stiff drink.
Raccoons do run fast. I have hit three of them :( and all three times they seemed to appear out of thin air. So it totally could have been a raccoon.
To make you feel better, I will share a story. I once hit a den? burrow? of baby bunnies with my LAWNMOWER. I mean itty bitty eyes not even open yet bunnies. The smallest one died very quickly. The other two we did not touch and they did not appear to be injured (they were bigger and I believe at the bottom of the burrow) and so I hope the mama rabbit came and moved them. They were gone the next day at least. I cried for weeks. And am now tearing up remembering that.
one time, my sister and I were driving home from a party (yeah, I hang out with my sister. What of it?), and suddenly there appeared a fuzzy creature about two feet in length, using the crosswalk in front of us. As it was nearly 2 a.m., and the animal was only barely in our headlights, my sister took it for a house cat, and slammed on the brakes. We stopped soon enough that it's feet were, as line of sight goes, just above our hood, and it's pointy evil face and soulless eyes glared back at us. It was no house cat. What did this giant diseased rat looking sonofabitch do to thank us for stopping in time to spare its life? It fucking hissed at us, and jumped into the sewer drain.
*its pointy face...
Edit: Also, there are people who rescue injured animals... sometimes these animals suffer injuries which would leave them too defenseless to release them into the wild, and people then adopt them... you wouldn't have to tame the raccoon yourself, you could let someone else do it, and then adopt it from them.
That happened to me once when I was like 16 or 17 and I didn't investigate because I was in a shitty part of Long Beach (what?) and I still feel guilty about it to this day...
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