It's a county road that heads out just north of our county-seat town to another county road that eventually ambles into the little-bitty town where I work.
This morning the Way Less Traveled is sporadically blanketed by fog.
And fog is like the jack-in-the-box of commuting.
The radio plays and "SURPRISE!", there's something that makes me wish I had the foresight to put on the Depends.
Today, there's a turkey.
With its friends.
Lotsa turkeys.
A flock of the winged vermin are standing next to the road, getting gravel, just 4 ft from Phlegm, the hurtling Taurus.
Turkeys, death, and destruction whizzing past each other at 55 mph.
Fog driving in the Northwoods.
The third time this happens, I don't even try to slow down.
They're grovelin' in gravel while I'm cruisin' on concrete.
Coming home from work things are a little different.
I come around a corner, music playing loudly with the windows down.
Dead ahead, just 50 yds away, turkeys are moving their congregational meeting from one side of the road to the other.
Uh-oh.
I hit the horn, one short blast.
They all hurry across and get off the road, but still right there on the shoulder.
Just before I get to them, a malevolent thought hits me.
And, like an idiot, I listen to it.
I dance on the horn, stuttering it rapidly.
Take that, stupid turkeys.
UH-OH!!!
Obviously, staccato stuff really scares turkeys.
And that makes 'em fly.
At about windshield height.
The air is filled with turkeys trying to go back across the road.
The windshield is a panorama of wide eyes, straining necks, and flailing wings.
Ohhhhhh, boy.
I'm heading into a wall of winged bowling balls.
A lotta things flash thru my mind as life goes into slow-motion.
Ya just hadta hit the horn, didn't ya?
Ohhhh, that'sa BIG one.
Awww, nuts! The windows are down!
I suddenly realize that if I'm t-boned by a gobbler, there is nothing to stop it from being my co-pilot.
Ohhh, mannnnn.
I could barely handle one that spent five hours in the oven as I attacked it with a huge knife and fork.
Which leads to another thought.
How does one dispatch a turkey with a styrofoam coffee cup?
Meanwhile, back on the road,
angels are flinging, goosing, and chucking turkeys up and over Phlegm, clearing a path through the frenzy of flapping feathers.
50 yards later the only reminder of the experience is a large, organic white spot on Phlegm's hood and the crash-jitters from an adrenaline rush.
Oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-boy.
Oh-boy-oh-BOY-OH-boy-oh-boy.
I reaaaaallly wish I woulda worn those Depends.
Hindsight is 20-20. Pun intended.