To my amazement, there were no less than three dozen buzzards picking the gizzards out of a raccoon laying somewhat lifelessly in the driveway of this family's next door neighbor. There were another dozen sitting rooftop waiting swoop their way into the entrails of this poor raccoon.
Now, I'm a city girl and don't know much about vultures except that they live up to their name. I drove by slowly, following the lead of the cars ahead of me and saw the raccoon's tail flip, and its leg, too. That raccoon was alive! I backed up, much to the dismay of both the car behind me and the family watching the spectacle. I rolled down my window and said.."Hey...don't you think we could move that raccoon out of the driveway and spare its little life and maybe even the life of that little dog of yours?"
The dad said.."well, I guess if you want to, go ahead." So, figuring I'd scare the buzzards away, I'd turn my car into the driveway, run out with a box lid I had in my back seat and scurry off the battered raccoon. As I got closer to the driveway, I noticed the raccoon had already met its maker and its black stripes were colonies of black flies getting in on the vulture's evening snack. I don't know what disgusted me more, the vultures or the family substituting this for an evening episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants. In my haste and horror, I grossly misjudged the turn into the driveway and went full-speed, nose first, and deep, into the culvert. There was no backing out, no going forward, I just sat there spinning my wheels while the vultures kept picking with no fear, while the children cheered them on, and while mom and dad looked at me with "you idiot, serves you right" grins.
To the dad's credit, he came over and tried to rock, push and pull my car out of its predicament. The mom actually said.."she was stupid enough to get into it, let her get out of it" and went in and shut the door. I made two phone calls, one to Uncle and one to AAA. All Uncle said when he showed up was "How the HELL did you do that? You were chasing those damn buzzards weren't you, bird girl?" AAA basically asked the same thing, but said it was nice of me to try to save the raccoon. Three people driving by, after witnessing my stupidity, asked if they could help, one offered me her AAA and her boyfriend, and two offered to tow me. Since my car was half in the culvert and half in the street, and since Uncle didn't pull his SUV all the way over on the road, we caused quite a back up while cars paused to witness the Vulture vs Raccoon vs Car debacle.
Finally, another neighbor came to the rescue with a car jack and a few two-by-fours. He jacked up my car while Uncle shimmed the boards under my front tire and viola, I backed out and backed away from an embarrassing situation. What's more, after I had called AAA, my pocket accidentally called Jayne in Tampa and for 28 minutes she listened to garbled laughter and conversation while I swallowed my pride and tried to make light of the situation. Apparently she tried yelling, whistling, honking her car horn, calling my name making Bebe bark, all to no avail. I heard nothing, nada, zip.
Here's what I learned: when AAA says 15 minutes, they mean 115 minutes, but they were very nice when I cancelled my service call; vultures are hideous, they only go after dead animals (had I known that, I would have just kept going!!) Uncle says they're doing what they're meant to do, they clean up dead animals; I need new glasses so I don't misjudge driveways/situations anymore; people are nice, they offer help when you need it (except families who think survival of the fittest via vulture-fest is a good lesson for toddlers and infants); and the next car I buy will have all-wheel drive.
As for dinner, I ordered fish instead of chicken, and we had a good giggle musing over my naivete. I told Uncle he could tell this story at my funeral and he alluded to that fact that this would not be the only story told, for sure. Apparently, I have an army of "she did what?" stories marking my trail like breadcrumbs.
