A few days ago, one of my best students showed up ten minutes before the end of class and then told me it was because he had been riding around on busses for the entire morning. I said, “Whatever.” Then, during a conference a few days later, he showed me a picture of the reason why: the entire windshield of his car had been smashed in when he hit a deer out by the St. Paul airport. As in, practically in the city.

Last night, Mister Husband and I were driving down the end of Snelling Avenue, which cuts through the old burbs of St. Paul. It ends in a twisty, steep hill that one wouldn’t want to go down at more than 25 mph or so. It was very dark. As I took one of the curves, a humongous buck lunged out not four feet in front of me. If I had hit him, he would have caved in the front of my small SUV — he might as well have been an elephant. We also probably would have missed the curve and ended up crashing down the hillside. Instead, we managed to barely miss each other and I made it down the hill before having a meltdown.

Deer? In the midst of St. Paul? And big-ass ones, no less. I drove around in the woods of Arkansas for better than ten years without ever having a close call with a deer, although I knew plenty of people who did. I’m not nearly as safe in the city, apparently.

Aside: I tried mightily to explain to my student the north Arkansas practice of shutting down schools and businesses for the first week of deer season. He still doesn’t believe me.