(re=run)
I had followed the same routine dozens of times. Arriving in my beach town, the dogs got excited and wanted out of the car. There’d been an accident in San Jose, so we were running a half hour behind.
Daisy (Jack Russell) started barking and pulling on her tether as soon as we got off the highway. I pulled up to the front of my house, opened the gate and let the dogs go in. I had to push her back in order to unhook her. Pepper (lab pit border collie mix) popped out of the car and followed Daisy in.
Then I turned onto the long driveway to the garage at the back of my house. The neighbor had parked her car in the easement again (shared driveway), and I couldn’t park my car. Her hip hurts constantly, and she wants a short walk to her garage. I called her and left a message. “I’m here. Please move your car.”
Then I walked through the tall gate which was strangely ajar. Maybe when another neighbor watered while I was on my trip . . .
I set my phone down on the small table by the back door, a much easier entrance with no steps. I unlocked the back door, then walked to the other side of the house to let the dogs into the back yard. Since my house is almost 100 years old, it doesn’t have the standard side yard setback. It‘s much narrower, eight feet for part of it, and then down to four and a half feet where the gate is. I opened the gate, let the dogs in, then shut it. The dogs took off, running to the back fence, like they always do. I walked up the slope from the gate and looked up.
The dogs were going ballistic. A big buck was coming straight for me with the two dogs in pursuit. Its antlers were huge.
I turned away from the deer and hugged the wall of my house. There was no time to panic or swear or pray. It was instinctive to turn away.
The buck jumped the gate, and the excitement was over.
All I could think of was how he could’ve kicked one of my dogs or gored them with his antlers, or gored me . . . My sister’s dog got kicked by a deer on her property in the Santa Cruz mountains. It was a $2000 vet bill for her beagle.
It’s rutting season, and the bucks are frisky, out looking to score. I consider myself lucky that the deer sailed past me and over the six-foot gate. I was less than three feet from him when he did.
I ran into a friend at the beach the next morning. When I told her what had happened, she said, “Isn’t it beautiful to watch them jump that high?”
Uh, I wasn’t watching. I was more concerned about getting out of the way.
Everything turned out as well as it could have. No one got hurt, just a table, a planter, a plastic garbage can, and a post to my arbor. Even the cell phone survived flying through the air and landing on the concrete patio.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 