Nemo and Bambi's Dad (Updated)

Update:  I got into a fight with my netbook in the middle of composing this post.  The netbook may have won, but it fights dirty with tactics such as publishing posts prematurely and then shutting everything down to run updates.


I killed a deer...probably.

I was driving to work one morning in early April when it happened.  My commute is not like most; instead of four-lane highways, I travel back roads.  Rather than fast food restaurants and shopping malls, I see farms and livestock...and deer.

Since I don't remember too much leading up to the hit, I was probably zoned out a bit in that "I drive this route twice a day" way.  I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and hit the brakes.  I'm so glad I did because this deer was BIG.  Of course, in my mind, he kept seeming bigger and bigger as I related to story, but he was still big.  I knocked his legs out from under him a bit, he fell over onto my hood and then kept running.  Fortunately I had completely stopped by this time because several more deer followed.  No one was behind me, so I just sat there for a moment thinking how glad I was that I had been able to hit the brakes.  If I hadn't, I'm pretty sure I would have had a giant deer through my windshield.

I vaguely recalled seeing pieces flying when I hit him, but I couldn't see any damage from inside the car so I naively thought that perhaps it wasn't so bad.  I started driving again, no issues there.  Then I pulled into a church parking lot a few hundred yards away to check for damage.  The door won't open.  Yep, there's damage.  So I get out on the passenger side and walk around to find:

So, a busted grill and my Nissan emblem popped off.

Close-up of the grill and hood (and fur, ew!).

Broken headlight.

And the bumper that got smashed into the fender that got crammed into the door...



Anyway, I was able to drive the remaining two miles or so to work and then had it towed to a body shop in Knightdale.  I probably could have driven it, but it was 26 miles and I didn't want to press my luck.  State Farm was great and got me hooked up with a great body shop that arranged the tow for me and reserved a car for me which we picked up later that same day.

My little Versa is called Nemo because he has a lucky wiper on the passenger side.  To keep with the theme, I named my "new" car Bruce.

Bruce is a Dodge Charger, which I always thought were kind of cool.  It was fun to have a powerful car for a little bit.  The novelty began to wear off when after a week I still couldn't park the damn thing and I had to drop another $60 on a second tank of gas.

After two weeks and one day one got my Nemo back.  I can once again practically park sideways in a parking space again and still be cool.  I love my car, and the fuzzy doggie paw print steering wheel cover, too!