Oh No, I Am Not Getting Eaten By Zombies Tonight…

… Now don’t get me wrong. I love God’s creation – the outdoors. It’s an endless source of wonder and beauty… and imminent DEATH! I like my nature from the comfort of a rocking chair on a screened in porch. I also like my nature to go to bed when I do; not prowling around in the shadowy dark making bone chilling shrieks and howls. I might even like nature a little more if it stopped trying to kill me when I am doing simply things like taking out the trash or pulling into my driveway.

As most regular readers know, I have a sick pathological fascination with zombies and my obsession du jour is a television show called The Walking Dead. If you watch this show then you totally understand me when I say… I see freaking walkers everywhere! Everywhere! In every tree lined forest edge, wooded park, empty parking lot, or outside my bedroom window. I see them especially in the woods that surrounds my house. Day or night, it matters not, my imagine is on hyper drive.

Then why the heck did I move out into the middle of nowhere if I hate nature so much and the woods is a dangerous place filled with zombies, monsters, and predatory nigh-time creatures. Because I hate people even more. At least I know zombies aren’t real. But that jerk who uses a leaf blower at 8 am Saturday morning, yeah, he is real. So I moved out to the middle of nowhere. Miles away from the nearest “that guy”.

The trade off… the unending horror of the surrounding wilderness.

So last night I was pulling up into my driveway and as the car’s head lights illuminated the woods I saw this…

Do you have any idea what that’s like?! How terrifying that is, after having exposed your mind to hours of Walking Dead, to come home and see no less than twenty glowing eyes peering out at you from the darkness?

I don’t care what anyone says… deer are not cute. Anyone who says that has never met a real one. I’m not talking about one of those tame deer you seek skulking about in national parks near tourist cabins that will eat little bits of bread out of your hands. I’m talking about the dangerous wild ones that will scream in your face and kick in your skull to protect it’s young.

For one thing they are bigger than a dog which automatically makes them menacing. And around here the deer travel in hordes, not unlike zombies, in numbers as large as twenty or thirty at a time. Try pulling into your driveway alone at night and being greeted with that and not run into your house cursing and screaming like a coward. Which is what I did. You call it cowardice. I call it a will to live.

Thanks to my cautious cowardice I am alive today to write about the perils of living in the country. So take that, killer zombie deer. I win.

*Blog post title comes from this quote.