Hoo Hoo

I have the craziest adventures in my car. Ready for this one? Here goes.

*insert dramatic music here*

So there I was, driving along. Minding my own business. Actually, I was pretty focused on an audio lecture on the book of Deuteronomy. (Sounds boring, but it was actually quite interesting.) My eyes were diligently watching the road in front of me. I’m going at a healthy pace. And then…

I notice something out of the corner of my eye. It’s large, brown, and flying to the side of me. No wait, it’s getting closer. Hey….WHACK!!!

Next thing I know, my passenger side mirror is hanging at a very precarious angle…and most of the mirror part is missing. So my brain starts processing the past few seconds and I realize – I’ve just been attacked by an owl.

What would possess a bird to fly diagonally across a busy highway and gain on a car going along at 70 mph? I wasn’t the only one on the road. It had to have been hunting something. Bet it never thought it would be eating car for dinner.

My mirror was hanging on, but slipping gradually lower, so I knew I had to stop. I waited for the next welcome center. (Telling my mirror the whole time, “You’re not allowed to fall off.”) When I was able to stop and look at the damage, discovered the only thing holding the mirror to my car was the cording that allows me to reposition the mirror. *insert sound effects here… zzzt zzzzt zzzzt*

The owl had ripped the bolts out, cracked the front part of the mirror, and taken out most of the reflective part of the mirror. He also left me a tuft of feathers so that I can actually prove that I’m not crazy. There *was* a bird who attacked my car.

So I walk into the welcome center and ask, “Do you guys have any tape?” The 17 year old attendant at the snack center replies, “I have scotch tape.” She also halfheartedly lifts the dispenser to show off her supply. I tell her what happened, and after she picks her jaw up off the ground points me to the gas station.

I drive over, walk in, and say, “I have a crazy question. Do you have any duct tape, because I was just hit by an owl.” Without missing a beat, the nice gas-station man replies, “Well, I don’t know about duct tape, but we have owl tape right over there.” LOL! I found myself a kindred spirit. I dramatically reenact my story, and he shares one of his own. He used to do construction work, and when he arrived at one house, he heard rustling on the inside. As he was approaching the back door (the big sliding glass kind), a large snowy owl tried to escape from inside the house, flew right at his head, and hit the glass door full force. He said the owl had probably been trapped in for a day or too and was super hungry. He also said the he spent several minutes laughing at the poor thing.

After sufficiently bonding with a stranger over our owl escapades, I take my gas-station quality duct tape and attempt to secure my mirror back to the side of my car. It didn’t work that wonderfully, but it would have to do. Just for grins, I tried to reposition the mirror…and discovered the cords still work! So I found a way to use the little bit of mirror on the very bottom right to help me see what’s going on outside the passenger side of my car.

Back on the road. After finishing the Deuteronomy lecture, I started listening to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone…halfway laughing every time owls were mentioned in the early chapters. Thankfully, my car, my self, and my mirror all safely arrived at my destination. Once I arrived, I found some nice, sturdy, black duct tape for a more permanent (yet still temporary) solution.

And there you have it. I’m a survivor. I don’t know if I can claim as much for the poor owl.

I’m trying to think of a moral of the story here. Uhhh…
* Life comes at you fast?
* Never underestimate the power of duct tape?
* I don’t give a hoot?
* You never know 'hoo' you’ll run into?

I’m open to suggestions….