PennyDaisy

Two stories from the weekend–

On the way to Austin, Saturday, noon-ish, we saw a cat on the side
of the
road (hwy. 290).  Ironically, Shelly spotted it just as I was
telling her a story about a cat I’d seen in our backyard.  She
thought it was a kitten, so we u-turned (twice because we missed it the
first time), pulled over, and walked through prickly, ant-infested
grass in flip-flops to where this cat lay.  It was obviously
dehydrated, but beyond that I could see no injuries.  Shelly said
it looked like it was either foaming at the mouth or had thrown
up.  We had no way of giving it water, no towel to pick it up
with and take it for help.  It had probably been hit, if only
barely,
and had managed to drag itself off the road a few feet.  So there
probably wasn’t anything to be done for it even if we had found
help.  I wanted to put it out of it’s misery–I kept thinking,
‘This is Texas, right?  Surely someone out here has a gun.’ 
But there were no homes or businesses close by.  I must admit, I
considered running it over. 
But I didn’t think I could go through with it (or sleep without
nightmares afterwards), so I didn’t even bring it up.  (My uncles
laughed when they heard that–and I have to admit, the idea of seeing
some lady stop on the side of the road, u-turn twice, and then a little
while later, drive down into the ditch is rather odd)  So we left,
feeling sad and helpless. 
I’ve seen hundreds of animals on the
side of the road.  Some mangled beyond recognition.  I’ve
never hit one.  I even stopped for a frog hopping across the road
on Friday–not because I’m so compassionate towards frogs, I just
couldn’t stand the thought of the squish it would make.  And I’ve
never had to leave any animal dying before.  I guess Jon is right:
don’t stop for animals on the side of the road.  Shelly wants to
have some sort of animal emergency kit to carry around so she can do
exactly the opposite.  I guess even if she can’t save them, it’s
worth it to her to try.  I’m not sure what I learned from
this.  All I got out of it so far was a drive-me-crazy ant bite on
my foot.

Okay, moving on…
On the way home, following Mom and Dad (we had to take three cars this
trip), I noticed some idiot following the car next to us too
closely.  When the little Honda in front of him didn’t pass Mom
fast enough, this nut-case in an older model car swerved behind Mom,
and promptly had to slam on his brakes.  As usual, I was talking
to the traffic–
“Oh, like that did you a lot of good….(as ‘older-model’ moved back into the left lane)…
“goofball.”
Then as the Honda moved on out of his way, and he stayed
put, I started to worry.  And then he started a little
weaving.  “He’s drunk.  Girls stop talking.”  (My
sisters’ conversations were too much at the moment.) 
It ran
through my head, briefly, what kind of angle I would need to bump him
off the road without really doing any damage.  Stupid, I know, but
I was terrified he was going to do something dangerous right next to
Mom, who had the little ones and the baby in her car.  He finally
zoomed on and disappeared.  I called Dad who was a couple miles
ahead to ask about the benefits of calling the cops that far out of
town, but we hadn’t gotten a liscense number so that was out.  I
called Mom to see if she had gotten the number and heard her version of
the story.  When I said, “I think he’s drunk,”  she replied,
“Oh, yeah.  Well, I’ve been praying for him.”  Pause.  “Oh.” 
Here I was thinking, ‘Run the guy of the road!  Pray
for all the other drivers!’  And my mom has been praying for
HIM.  Wow.  My mom is cool like that.  And sometimes I
forget.  I’m not as
compassionate as I should be about people…just pets.