DOH! - A DEER!

It was while I was driving along the highway and noticing yet another deer carcass on the side of the road that I decided that it would suck to be a deer.

There have been times during great stress in dealing with my everyday life that I have wished to be someone or something else. A bird would be appealing due to the whole "flying factor" - just pick up and fly some place warm when the mood strikes you and poop on those pedestrians who tick you off along the way. If I'm a bird, I'm flying my butt down to Disney World, getting in free, and bombadeering the jerks who rent a wheelchair and fake disability in order to get in the front of the line. A bear would be a good choice - get to gain weight and sleep all winter without anyone saying "boo" about it and if they do, you just eat them - yeah, I could be a bear.

However, a deer's life is not one I envy. They are the Rodney Dangerfields of the animal kingdom - they get no respect. Deer are surrounded by the threat of imminent death. I imagine that if a deer possessed human qualities, we would see a bunch of paranoid, chain-smoking cynical deer who are in therapy twice a week....Maybe Dennis Leary is a deer in disguise. And a disguise is really what a deer needs to escape the bullets that wiz by their heads every hunting season. Of course, the deer population is so large that if they are not hunted by either man or beast, they would starve to death for lack of food. Then of course our furry friend can meet its fate by automobile - can't even run away from its miserable existence in the forest without the fear of ending up as a hood ornament on a Chevy Impala - which is just cruel irony if you ask me. To add insult to injury - a dead deer isn't even removed from the scene of its demise on the highway. It is simply pushed to the side of the road and spray painted orange so that it can be avoided by on-coming traffic. So if you are that deceased deer, not only are you now sprawled out for all of rush-hour traffic to see, but your butt has been tagged with orange graffiti - not a flattering color I might add.

You know, when you add all the factors of a deer's life up - guns, over-population, starvation, predators, getting killed by a drive-by, graffiti - you have....the ghetto. Maybe deer could expound upon their harsh life in the wood-ghetto though the music of rap. Deer - the rap artists of the animal kingdom. You could have Snoop Bucky-Buck, Lil' Fawn, Dr. Doe, and Bambi Elliot. They could rap about Chronic (Wasting Disease) and drive pimped-out John Deer tractors. "So I'm on a mission. Ya betta jus' listen. Time to give props to the deer that we're dissin' - Peace Out!"