Ahhh, the Memories

Above is a vid from one of my favorite channels on YouTube, belonging to a couple of bunnies called Buns and ChouChou.

Watch it and then read this post...

So, I saw this little video this morning, sweet little bunny singing her heart out for Christmas (for which, incidentally, I am monumentally stoked this year), and it brought back a memory of my own, from middle or high school, I can't remember which. (This story has a happy ending, so please don't panic halfway.)

My sister had a friend, who shall remain nameless "just in case", who loved to sing, but sang terribly. It was a breathy kind of wheezy nasally whine, completely off key, in its own dimension with its own inflections and pronunciations. Seriously. You'll see what I mean. My memory of it is that something terrible can be beautiful in its awfulness, the sheer fact of its existence reminding you of why you appreciate even an OK singer next to it.

Still, she sang with a passion, and somehow my sister was always next to or around her when they would do little performances at school. For the school Christmas show that year, their class was singing "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and my sister was complaining loudly about how she was being torturously subjected to "Jane's" otherworldly intonations.

So, we were in the car one night, driving home from getting groceries in Gouverneur (about 40 minutes from home--yeah, and you think you've got it hard: that was the CLOSE grocery store!), and Judy was on about Jane and my dad had the idea that we should all sing like Jane. And he launches into "O Little Town of Bethlehem".

And just as he gets through with a particularly soulful "bethle-HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM!!!!!!" (mimicking Jane's pronunciation), doesn't a damned deer leap into the road and onto the hood of our car? So of course, Dad hits the brakes, the deer goes skittering off the hood and is lying in a fairly undignified (for a deer) heap on the side of the road. Dad throws the car in reverse, we see the deer in the headlights, lying in a ditch, licking its leg and glaring at us.

Well, this is not good. The poor thing is hurt. So, instantly, the revelry of caroling over, my dad goes to a nearby farm to call the DEC officer to come out and humanly dispatch the poor thing. Meanwhile, my mom is in the car, "Now girls, don't upset your father, it's not his fault, these things happen, deer often get hit by cars, the warden will know what to do..."

And the minute my dad gets back in the car, before he has the chance to open his mouth and tell us what's going to happen next, my mom wails, "Oh George!" and about bursts into tears. My sister and I were dying not to burst out laughing.

So my dad says the DEC warden is on his way to kill the poor thing and there's nothing we can do, so we might as well not be around to watch the proceedings.

We drive the rest of the way home in contemplative silence. I was probably crying or praying for the deer, but whatever. We pull in the driveway and decide to survey the damage to the vehicle. None!!! Dodged a bullet there... There is a small line of fur along the hood of the van, but nothing dented, cracked, broken, nothing at all.

We start unloading the groceries and no sooner get inside when the phone rings. It's the DEC warden, calling to say he tracked the deer 3 miles into the woods and couldn't find it, so he's guessing it was just winded and is totally fine.

There was much rejoicing, and perhaps even another verse of "olittletownofbethle-HEM" to celebrate.

Why I am writing this, I don't know, other than seeing that video gave me such a nice memory to think of. I guess those are the times I miss most now that I'm a grown up with so much changed. Nice to have the memories inside, though!