Fear the Deer

(Warning to reader: this is yet another jogging-in-the-morning story)

The mornings are starting to feel a touch frigid, but the weather won't keep me from my jog, thanks both to my resilience and my thick-headed obstinacy. There is, however, one thing that might put an end to my running routine: Odocoileus virginianus, better known as the white-tailed deer.

These deer are inescapable. You see them in them frolicking in the fields, skulking along the side of the road, going into the dining hall to get some fresh alfalfa. Er, maybe not that last one.

Early mornings the deer are out in force. Whole platoons of them, ambling along the road without a care in the world. Generally, they are a skittish crowd. Approach them too fast--approach them at all, in fact--and they go bouncing off into the woods mooning you with their white tails.

But the situation quickly becomes terrifying when you enter the woods. There, you trespass on the deer's turf. This morning I got lost out in those woods. What followed was an ordeal straight out of the Discovery Channel's "I Shouldn't Be Alive."

As I jogged up and down the trail, looking for the bread crumbs I had dropped to show the way home, I began to hear weird cracking noises in the woods. I looked and saw deer. Not one deer. Many. The further I ran, the more I saw, alone, in bunches, in whole packs. A deer lurked around every corner. Sometimes I turned a corner and found a pair of deer trotting in front of me.

Yes, they looked harmless, but I'm sure people thought sharks looked harmless before "Shark Week" revealed the terrible truth. I knew what these deer were plotting. They wanted to kill me. They would tear my flesh and leave my bones bleaching in the woods for their next victim to find.

Have you ever known true terror? Not the terror of "oh no, AMC is showing a Sylvester Stallone marathon," but the terror of "oh no, the wings just fell off my plane"? I felt it this morning.

Through a story too complicated and fabricated to relate, I made it back alive. I consider myself lucky to have escapes with all my limbs and most of my digits. Next time I go running, I will be ready for those deer. Next time I run, I'll bring the one thing that defeats deer in the game of life: a car.

Also, the weather was pretty good today. If you were wondering.