Short Trip

One of the nuns in high school used to intone, "Patience is a virtue.  Virtue is a grace.  Grace is a little girl who didn't wash her face."  This bit of drivel kept repeating in my mind last night as I was driving to a friend's holiday party after dark.  Yes!  I went out at night; I think it's the second time this year.  I sometimes feel like a vampire in reverse, running for cover as the sun goes down.  The chickens and I just have little reason to go out again once we've shut the door.  The cats are the only ones willing to risk moonburn.  At any rate, I got duded up for the festivities, I had the plate of warm brie en croute on the seat beside me, and off I went to drive the all of ten miles to my friends' place back in the hills of Mt. Aukum...slowly.  I had barely turned onto the big road when the first deer ran in front of me.  All guests leaving Farview Farm are cautioned to "Watch for deer," but ten deer in ten miles?!  I've seen what damage hitting one of these suicidal creatures can to do a vehicle even at slow speed, and just last week such an accident made the TV news when an antler came through the windshield and pierced the driver's hand, pinning him to the wheel.  Bucks, does, and fawns were lying in wait for me last night, some darting across the road, some dithering down the middle, and a few watching from the berm.  It simply did not pay to race down the roads and so I crept along at twenty miles an hour, thinking that patience is, indeed, a virtue.