You do realize you're a deer, right?

I was coming home late last night (WAY too late, for many reasons, but mainly brownies and WoW) from my friend David's house; he lives in Cary and I live (duh) in Chapel Hill, but for one reaons or another the route I usually take is on back roads rather than I-40.

Having lived in the boonies for many years of my life (all but 12 by my count, and 4 of those were from birth to 4 years old, so I don't know that they count), I know to watch for deer as I drive on back roads at night, and even know HOW to watch for deer (look at the furthest edge of your headlights for the refletion of their eyes, watch for movement, and be especially careful around fields where they'll graze). And I'm reasonably careful.

But, one of them snuck up on me, so to speak, last night, and I didn't realized it was by the side of the road until I was only 20 or 30 feet away from her; I was coming up a hill and around a curve, so my line of sight was off. Anyway, luckily the deer realized I was there, and was getting out of the way, but had to negotiate a fence which was between the road and where she wanted to be.

Now, deer can jump. They're typically good jumpers. One of Peter's first baby-sentences was "Dee Uh!" which meant, "Look, Mother, the deer just jumped over the fence!", caused by seeing a big buck jump, from a standing position, over a 5-6 foot fence. So, yeah, they can jump.

But this deer last night, for whatever reason, chose NOT to jump.

Instead, she belly-crawled UNDER the bottom rung of the fence she needed to get past.

This is just wrong! It's like birds that run across a parking lot, dodging cars, rather than flying! She's a deer, for heaven's sake! She was meant to jump!

But, maybe she harbors a lifelong dream of joining the Marines, and was practicing for Basic Training....