When it comes to roadkill I am in complete denial.I have a long commute - we know this. I drive for hours down long, mostly rural roads. I see no roadkill.
I do see tire treads with appendages, bags of garbage that appear - in my peripheral vision - to actually be furry (mold, no doubt), lumpy rolls of discarded rugs and tennis shoes with odd, fluffy tails.
No dead possums. No dead foxes. No dead puppies. No dead kitties. No dead deer. No dead squirrels and NO armadillos with rigor mortis.
Unlike the child in The Sixth Sense I do not see dead critters.
My mother is a different story. "Oh, look at the poor dead puppy. What a pretty dog," as she cranes her head, owl-like, to get a better look as we speed past the lump. Which, is NOT a dog, it is a sack of laundry that fell off a truck.
"Would you STOP already? What is it with you and the morbid fascination with deceased animals?"
"Well it was a pretty dog." ::ignoring me completely::
Now I have a carpool mate who behaves exactly as my mother does when it comes to taxidermy candidates. And it Makes. Me. Crazy.
"Look at those two dogs curled up together! How does that happen? What do you think they were doing to end up like that?"
"NOT DOGS! Trash bags. You aren't wearing your glasses. You don't KNOW those were dogs."
"Oh, yes, I saw their...."
"STOP! NaNaNaNaNaaaaaaa! Not listening! Garbage bags! People are litter bugs!"
So now we have a deal. In my car they are trash bags...in her car they are animals.
Kind of defeats the purpose of carpooling when I'm volunteering to drive every damn day to avoid The Roadkill Conversation.
Image Credit: www.indianabeer.com/NewsPics2004/News1222GrolschCrash
Comments
It's a deceit we've continued. Even when the amount of, um, detritus makes it patently obvious that the sleep in question is a particularly deep one.