The Thing I Hate the Most.

It's road-kill.

I hate it. 

Any time I see a poor something on the side of (or in the middle of) the road, I can't help but get chocked up in the back of my throat.

I feel like I saw a lot of road-kill this last weekend and it made me a little ill inside.

I can't help but wonder what poor Mr. Raccoon was doing when tragedy hit.  What was it that was so distracting to him that he didn't see the semi-truck bounding down the road? Was his wife in labor?  Was he just brining back the Thai take-out he had gone to pick up? Or maybe he died heroically, because Mr. Raccoon Junior was playing in the road (against his mother's strict "no-playing-in-the-road" rule) and Mr. Raccoon senior ran out to push him out of the way of the semi-truck just in time.

Or the sweet deer?  Did the driver and she make eye contact first? Why didn't the driver slow down?  Why didn't the deer back away? Why? WHY?!?!?!

And SO. HELP. ME. (me AND my emotional state) if it's a cat or - MUCH WORSE - a dog.  Sometimes I can't bear to look too closely so as to avoid seeing that. Ignorance, in this case, is bliss.

 This one time I was running at my parent's house.  There is this fabulous loop of a hill that's great to run or walk when you need a good 20-40 minute work-out.  And on the hill behind the house there was a dead squirrel in the center of the road.

That wouldn't do.

Upon further inspection (with no touching, I promise), I determined that the poor thing was indeed dead.

I found some sticks and tried to shift her wee body out of the center of the road because, let's face it, to die by car is bad enough, but to die by car and then get run over again and again and again is a WHOLE other story.

But the sticks weren't working. The poor thing had bled a bit and was stuck to the blazing-hot asphalt.

So I went home for supplies.

I filled two 44 ounce cups with warm water, and grabbed a shovel.  Then I returned to Mrs. Squirrel (her little baby-feeding tummy was apparent. She was definitely a Mrs.)

I poured the warm water around her body so it would loosen her from the street. Then I scooped her little body onto the shovel.  Then I put her up into the woods on the side of the street, and covered her wee body with earth.

Poor thing.

If only all sweet ill-fated creatures could have such a burial.