Roadkill is everywhere. It cannot be avoided. In the South, I've seen roadkill armadillo. In the mountains, its marmots and those prong-horned elk type things. In the Midwest, it's raccoons and opossum and deer. Well, rabbits and squirrels, too. I don't have a problem with roadkill, as such. It's often icky, but other than that, no big deal. However, I recently realized that some of these animals look surprised. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I've seen plenty of these critters rush into oncoming traffic for no apparent reason. No forest fires. No wildcats in chase. No hunters. Nope. Just heavy traffic and a suicidal animal. I'm not kidding. I swear to god that some of these animals are actually plotting their own demise. I think that it's rather nervy of them to jump in front of a vehicle in order to end their lives, and then look surprised afterwards when it worked.
I've also seen several apparently uninjured critters just lying along the side of the road. No blood or gore. No look of surprise or pain. Just a dead animal. These are the ones who look relaxed and peaceful. Like they've crawled to the edge of that particular road just to say good-bye to the world or like it's some kind of special memory for them and they want their last moment on earth to be there. I think these ones have returned to the road, glanced around fondly for whatever reason, then laid down and died decently. My question is, why? Most of these roads have been around long enough for most of these creatures to NOT remember anything else being there. Is it some kind of memory of a lost loved one? Maybe an initiation right? Maybe that's the reason some of the other roadkill looks surprised. Ever read The Far Side? The dogs running into traffic with the caption, "Randy's in the club"? Yep. Like that. Some kind of animal fraternity prank gone awry. Other than that, suicide missions and deciding to drop dead at the side of the road for reasons unknown to humans are the only things I can come up with. But, there is only two kinds of roadkill: the ones that look surprised and the ones that look like they belong in a funeral parlor. What's the deal? I'm open to other theories.
Penguins from Mary Poppins
Image by Disney
3 comments:
I'm thinking Stephen King sort of thoughts.
The animal mafia offs these little critters then lays them along the road to make it look like the inconsiderate humans ran them down.
The ones that seem to rush into traffic are either being chased by the mafia, or the animal cops and are trying to flag down a human in hopes of getting help when SQUISH..thus the look of suprise.
Hmm. Interesting theory. Probably true too. Definitely Stephen King-esque. Also, brilliantly funny. Mind if I use it in an act? Seriously. I'm thinking of doing an amateur mic-night comedy routine using the whole roadkill thing, since I'm fairly sure it's not stolen material.
Yeah, I love kitties, but the dead ones make for a great game of "flat cat"...which my high school psychology teacher taught us about.
Kids ask the damnedest questions, don't they? lol. How cute! Mine only wanted to drag them home and give them funerals.
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