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Wildlife must be doing quite well, judging by the volume of roadkill I've seen lately.
There seems to be a season for each species to commit highway hara-kiri. For instance, a month or so ago skunks were the prevalent source of roadside gore. Most of the stinkers appeared to be fairly young, perhaps the skunk equivalent of teenagers.
This leads one to wonder what drove these youngsters to seek this smushed state. Maybe peer pressure was a factor: "I dare you to cross that road! Are you a skunk or a chicken? Bwaak, bwaak! There he goes… Run, Pepé, run! No! Don't stop and stare into those headlights!"
Skunk season was supplanted by raccoon season, and deer season will soon be here. For a guy, it's easy to put yourself to the shoes -- or, more accurately, the hooves -- of a rutting buck who meets his end on the highway.
Head down as he follows an incredibly alluring scent, all he can think is "Doe, doe, doe!" He suddenly hears a startling noise. He lifts his head just in time to see the headlights of a fast-approaching semi-truck and think his very last thought, which is "D'oh!"
As gory as all this critter carnage may be, it's probably for the best. Without such attrition we might soon be overrun by all manner of skanky varmints demanding to move in with us as winter approaches. Like we don't get enough of Nicolas Cage as it is.
A good example of this phenomenon occurred shortly after my wife and I had wed. A deeply cold winter had descended upon us, causing the basement furnace of our drafty old farmhouse to run almost constantly.
Sometime in the middle of a night, the house suddenly filled with the unmistakable odor of skunk. Powerful stink waves distorted the very air and our eyes watered uncontrollably.
A skunk had gained entry to the basement via a forgotten coal chute. Unable to find his way back out, he let his displeasure be known by dumping the contents of his scent glands into the furnace fan.
What an awful experience! It took months for my nostril hair to grow back.
We had another wildlife incursion incident much more recently. My wife and I were quietly watching TV one evening when I heard some thumping outside our living room window. Curious, I peered out. There, eating dog food out of the dog feeder, was the world's largest rat!
No, it wasn't one of the Kardashians. I turned on the porchlight a saw that that the large rat-like being was, in fact, a possum. Or an opossum. Whatever.
I decided to do the humane thing by capturing the critter in a live-catch trap. I baited the trap with peanut buttered bread and was quite confident of success.
But the morning light revealed only an empty trap. No bread, no possum, nothing. Undeterred, I rebaited and reset the trap.
The trap was completely empty again the next morning. "No more Mr. Nice Guy!" I muttered as I dug my 12 gauge out of the closet.
Shortly after darkness fell, I heard a familiar thumping from the dog feeder. Our dog was snoozing in the mudroom, so I knew it had to be our nocturnal freeloader.
Shotgun shouldered, I flipped on the porchlight and leaped out the front door shouting, "Freeze, punk!" This was something I'd always wanted to do.
The possum casually pulled his head out of the dog feeder and stared at me brazenly with his beady black eyes. Our gaze locked and an unspoken communication passed between us.
What I heard from the possum was, "Where's my peanut butter and bread, Bozo? You can't expect me to live on this cheap dry dog food! And when are you going to let me sit in your recliner? You can't hog it all the time!"
That would never do. The role of scruffy, smelly, shaggy, household pest is already taken. I worked hard to attain that post and will not relinquish it easily.
An additional consideration was all the illnesses that possums can carry, one of which is Chagas disease. I don't know what that is but would guess that it's not a good thing for a guy to have a disease that afflicts his Chagas.
Another unspoken message flashed between us. The opossum passed away a moment later from severe and sudden lead poisoning. I checked, and he wasn't just playing possum.
It's been quiet at our house ever since, and I don't expect any more ratty varmints to show up on our doorstep. But then again, it's been a while since anyone has seen Britney Spears.
-- Jerry's book, "Dear County Agent Guy," can be found at www.workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.