DEER DIARY

Deer are not scary. Grizzlies are scary. Sharks are scary. Even stingrays can be scary. But Bambi never felt particularly threatening to me. In fact, one could make the case that deer are timid. They would always scatter when I charged them. Especially does. So, what went wrong this morning?

I was out admiring my paint job on the house, when I spotted a doe munching on the last pedals in my wife's sorry flower garden. Ever since spring, when her prized lilies first appeared, I've been chasing the deer all over the neighborhood in a futile effort to keep them off the expensive herbiage.

I've begged my wife to "plant" long-lasting, artificial flowers -- to no avail, and now I've become a Pinkerton on the garden beat.

It's never done much good. The deer always get the flowers anyway. But I get a little power rush thinking my heft and histrionics would feel threatening to a large, four-legged herbivore (my wife is a small, two-legged herbivore). I never chase carnivores, no matter how small.

I'm like Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, scaring large beasts with large teeth back into the jungle. I go "whoost" and growl and the deers dart off into the surrounding woods like they've seen Hannibal Lector. I like that feeling.

Now I'm behind locked doors, all agitated and my hands are shaking. What part of my routine did that animal not understand?

So anyway, I'm out in the yard and I see this doe, a deer, a female deer, noshing on my wife's mind-bogglingly expensive hybrid lilies, and I feel my muscles tighten. Temples pulsing, I clenched my teeth, leaned forward, and charged the plant-purloining perpetrator.

Accelerating, I began thinking of the energy my considerable mass would unleash at the moment I impacted such a large, albeit docile creature as a deer. Actually, I was hoping it wouldn't come to this.

So why am I now dripping with sweat and humiliated beyond tears? I'm getting to that. Are we with me?

Anyway, back outside, I squinted and stared directly into the doey eyes of my quarry. "Make my day," I thought as the animal loomed larger.

So I'm charging and somewhere along the way I'm noticing that the animal isn't taking flight. The damn deer appears to be holding her ground. Oh boy, what do I do now? I sense my momentum is not going to be braked any time soon. Thank God she doesn't have a rack, I remember thinking.

Now everything is a blurred, slow-motion, stop-framed event. I see the doe lower her head. She's looking straight at me now. Like the bulls of Madrid, she is flaring her nostrils and the steam jetting from her snout indicates to me she is pissed over my intrusion. Now she starts scuffing her hoof along the ground.

I know this scuffing hoof thing means she's angry. Why do I know this? I think to myself.

I used to watch TV westerns with my sister, when the horses, getting angry about "injuns" in their midst, starting scuffing their left hooves against the ground. For some reason, it was always the left hoof. Do horses know their left hoof from their right? Who knows! Anyway, when I snapped to, it occurred to me that the deer was not only looming larger because of my approach, but because she had the temerity to charge me -- a human for chrissake!

What the hell is this? A deer charging me? Have deer finally turned on the human race? Was this the deer version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds? Why should I have to teach this deer how to be a deer? I'm not really prepared to collide with a two-hundred pound wild animal, I'm thinking. I haven't even had my coffee.

Two-hundred pounds hitting two-hundred pounds. This can't be good. I quickly calculated the force of impact. Two times two, let's see, carry the zeros...this was not going to end well.

Sensing serious rib cage damage, I veered off at the last second, tripping over the damn cement lid covering the septic tank that the assholes never replaced right when they last pumped the tank. Now, I'm squirming on the ground in considerable pain.

The deer turned to see my predicament and, shaking her head, polished off the last flower and sauntered off.

My wife's birthday is this Wednesday. This is the big one. She's turning 30. As soon as my ankle feels better, I'm going into town and getting her some artificial flowers.