I am terrified of deer.

Here’s why. Last week I was on my way to my 6 a.m. aerobics class, feeling proud of myself for actually running ahead of schedule (which is hard to do that early in the morning). I was driving along a four-lane highway with a 55 mph speed limit. There wasn’t much traffic, just one car a few lengths ahead of me and a second car beside it in the other lane.

Suddenly a full-sized deer emerged from the left side of the road and ran across the two empty lanes and into my own. The car in front of me slammed into it, sending pieces of shrapnel and debris flying everywhere.

I pulled over to the side of road, as did the second car. We both got out and checked on the lady who hit the deer. She was fine; her car was in bad shape. The deer was dead.

The lady didn’t have a phone, so I called 911 while the other bystander used her phone to call the lady’s family.

(I just have to say that my call to 911 did not instill a feeling of confidence in our emergency response system. We were still technically in the bounds of my hometown, but near the border of the larger next town over. My call went through to the next town over. I told them where we were, and they transferred me to my hometown dispatcher. When I told that person where we were she said that we should be talking to the next town over. As she started to transfer me back I told her that I had already been transferred to her by the next town over. Then both dispatchers were on the phone together arguing about who should respond. Meanwhile, I’m looking at my watch, watching the minutes tick by, recognizing that although I had before been running ahead of schedule I was now about to be late to a class that I was teaching–the blackest sin of aerobic instruction. I finally told both dispatchers that I have to go and could they please just send someone to help the poor lady.)

So I got to class (late) and taught it. On the way home all I could see everywhere were these imaginary deer jumping out at me. (I did see two actual deer a couple blocks from my house, off to the side of the road.) And now I’m totally paranoid about deer jumping out at me while driving. Like I needed a longer list of things to be paranoid about.