yea

Now I have to say in all honesty I have been cheerful and pretty well-liked by those around me on a fairly consistent basis, and I seem to be able to bring out the best in people, or I just am lucky, so I can not in good faith complain! There are exceptions, but we just can't let others bring us down to their level---stay positive and others will be motivated & uplifted!
But I still have fun talking trash about the "sour pusses" I do occassionally happen upon;) Or those who happened to be born into my family:p We don't all get lucky with blood relatives:rolleyes:

Roadkill stories, to get back on topic:

I was driving my first car years ago, a little Toyota corolla, with my arm resting on the open window frame and smack, out of nowhere a little bird hit the side mirror and feathers went everywhere. Scared the bejesus out of me. An inch higher and it probably would have flown into me.

When I drove truck years ago for a furniture company, the truck had a loft that went over the cab. Driving in PA. on a road for about 20 minutes non-stop I finally came to a stop sign. As soon as I stopped a bird slid off the front of the loft, and landed on the hood. I have no idea how long that poor sucker was stuck to the loft.

Same job, just finished delivering to some officers at West Point and was taking route 9W back North. This is a curvy road that follows the Hudson river. We stopped and got a couple slices of pizza and a soda. With a slice of pizza in one hand, the soda in the other, off I go, steering with my elbows. Those trucks have huge steering wheels so after a while, you get pretty good at this. Come around a turn and there is a herd of deer in the road. I swerve through three of them successfully, but the fourth one didn't make it (a fawn). The truck took zero damage, in fact, it didn't even take the dirt off the bumper. I felt bad for the fawn but had I had my hands fully on the wheel, chances are, I would have over compensated the truck if I reacted too quick and falling into the Hudson could have been a distinct possibility. Since I had to steer with my forearms, it was actually a smooth maneuver.

One that broke my heart was one night working late (like tonight) I drove down to a 24 hour deli here to get something to drink and this fox jumped out in front of me, I could do nothing but slam on the brakes but it tried to actually outrun the car (ran straight ahead). I had seen the fox a hundred times in that area over the last year or so. It didn't make it and I felt so bad.

Now as for the other conversation here about idiots at the grocery store & parking lot...

I am one who rarely grabs the front parking spots unless there are quite a few of them open. I am a not an old person, nor am I handicapped in any way. If there is another spot, I will take it so as to let an elderly person or a mother with 5 kids grab it who really could use the break in distance.

I for one have never waited for someone to leave their space in a parking log unless I have to load something into my car/truck that is huge from the store. I can't stand people who wait 5 minutes for a spot.

I hate it when you go to get your cart and you see some young idiot grab a cart in front of a lady and walk into the store. Myself, I grab the cart and push it to the lady so she does not have to wait. What did that cost me, an extra five seconds to be polite and in the smallest of ways, make the world a nicer place?

My biggest pet peeve at the grocery store must be this though. Waiting in line behind someone who is cashing out their items, watching them pile up because there is nobody bagging them. Then when all the items are scanned she (it has ALWAYS been a she in my experience) stands there watching the checkout person bag everything and doesn't lift a finger. After everything if finally bagged an put into her cart, then she remembers she has to search and find her checkbook, spend 10 minutes writing out a check, balancing her account, and haggling over the price before she finally presents the check. Then she stands there and goes over each item on the receipt and will not friggin MOVE!

First of all, if your too good to bag your own groceries, then your too good to be grocery shopping yourself. I always feel like saying "Excuse me your highness, but the rest of us serfs are running out of time in this life, you think you could bag YOUR groceries?"

Second, you mean you can't get your checkbook out, get it filled out except for the price and signature so when it comes time to pay, all you have to do is fill out the last two things?

Third, can't you get out of my way while you review your receipt? I mean, just push your cart down the aisle and then check it. If something is off, call the manager. The checkout person will have to do that anyway.

Grr, makes me mad thinking about it.. :rolleyes:

As the Good Book says: Love they neighbor, it will drive him crazy.

Or maybe that was Mark Twain.

With the exception of a robin that flew into my headlight (no kidding, actually had to remove it as it was halfway through) I've fortunately never hit an animal. But a road kill is responsible for me learning how to butcher my own game.

We were at a meeting, and one of the men came in saying how there was a large dead deer across from his driveway. I asked how long it had been there, and he said it hadn't been there when he'd gotten home 20 minutes ealier.

Meeting over!

Seems this deer had been hit by a Sunbeam Alpine, and to this day I don't know why they didn't have to remove it from the critter. Estimated live weight (by the game warden) was 305 pounds---which is a big deer even in Illinois.

Took it to a processor (whom I later heard some stories about) and got 95 pounds of meat back; which included bone-in cuts. To put that in perspective, you should lose about a third of the body weight if you leave the bones in. Which means we should have gotten close to 200 pounds of meat back.

I swore that would never happen again, and learned how to break-down large animals starting with my very next deer. Now I do all my own butchering, and get exactly the cuts I want.

See. There really is some good in everything.

Good stories guys, miraculously amazing that you did not wreck Jafo! I actually saw a georgeous fox laying dead beside the road once, it was so pretty & perfectly colored (No noticeable blood or damage outside must've been all internal) I had to do a u-turn stop and get my granddaughter out of the car & show it to her. You just very seldom catch even a glimpse of one these days!

KYH that butcher sounds like he was "skimmimg off the top" or either there was some damage to the meat where the deer was struck by the vehicle that rendered it unuseable.

Now I hate to see any creature wind up run over, but my least favorite of all is skunk PEEEWHEWWW!

And grocery store lunatics are not rare these days, very plentiful indeed:mad: