Have Antlers. Will Work For Food.

I blame daylight saving time (I mean, who’s saving time anyway?) because I wouldn’t even know a problem existed without it, blissfully going about my life as if I were in a fairy tale. But that pesky hour change shifted me into a schedule just early enough to expose the creatures that apparently make themselves comfortable on my lawn all through the night. These deer have got to go!

Now I can feel them looking at me even when the porch lights are off. I know they’re there, and that makes all the difference. I have to steel myself before going out every morning, constantly reminding myself that they’re just as afraid of me as I am of them. Yes, that’s the same thing arachnophobics (my auto-correct explains nicely to me that I really wanted to call them archbishops) tell themselves when in the presence of spiders. I am aware. But a spider isn’t a solid beast upwards of 400 pounds. Eek.

So, on Monday I left my house as usual at 5:30 am, without a thought as to anything besides heading to work, when I noticed peripheral movement. When I turned my head to look in that direction it was difficult at first because it was dark, but once I began to focus my stomach did flips and I jumped back into the house post haste. Once I had stumbled over the threshold and slammed the door shut, I heard the sound of hooves thundering away from the very direction of the lawn where I had seen something. It was at least 100 deer, from the sounds of it, who had congregated on my lawn, and I had interrupted their meal. While I waited for my heartbeat to go back to normal, my wife came into the kitchen to see what was going on.

“Uh, dear, you won’t believe this,” I said, my knees knocking together like in those cartoons. “There are a bunch of deer on the side lawn. I can’t go out there.” I could tell she was trying to contain a smile, and that made me feel even more foolish.

“Just go out there,” she said. “They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”

“I very much doubt that,” I replied, but knowing I didn’t have much choice as I still had to be at work.

“They’re just deer,” she said.

“Who could ram me and stomp me into oblivion,” I babbled. I tend to babble when I get freaked out. I believe I said this particular phrase several times in succession.

“I’ll go out and scare them off for you,” she said. That’s when I realized I really was foolish, but my brain couldn’t get my legs to move enough to walk outside with her.

After she cleared them off the lawn, I recognized the irony in the scene. I mean, here I am, the big, strong man who is afraid of what are essentially very large dogs (who are vegetarians just like me), and my wife (an admittedly small woman) who has no fear whatsoever, chasing them off our lawn so that I can go to work in the morning. My excuse: I’m a city boy, born and raised. I’m not used to interacting with nature quite like this. Luckily my country girl didn’t tease me too much about it, but now I find myself having to psych myself up every single morning because I know they will still be out there, and they have been. In fact, this morning I tried my best to scare them off the lawn, but two stalwarts refused. So I treated them like lawn ornaments and walked out to my car anyway.

I think I’m turning a corner. But, man, why can’t they just go to the neighbor’s lawn instead?

Sam