Operator
09-18-2004, 02:02 AM
OK, this does not really qualify as a "hunting" story, tho I have a few of those as well. But a duck does die in it, so I guess that counts for something.
One of the drawbacks to insisting on living in the country is that often the highest paying jobs are far away. This was the case for me a few years ago: I was a CNC/Machine shift supervisor for a large prime contractor to Boeing in the Puget Sound area. Now, my family and friends all thought I was nuts when I took the job as it was a whopping 202 mile round trip commute every day! Luckily I had the weekend shift and we only worked Friday-Sunday (but got paid for a full week!), and my wife didn't complain too much about the paycheck either.
Now, as the commute was insane, and I lived on an island to boot, I would usually rise at around 3:00am in order to be on the road by 3:30. Once off the island my route was pretty straightforward; due east on Hwy-20 for 12 miles, then due south on I-5 for much of the remainder. But being a good commuter I soon found ways to snip off 2 minutes here, 5 minutes there, etc.. As it happens the 100 or so square miles of land that lay in the "corner" formed by Hwy-20 and I-5 was all solid farmland. Miles and miles of tulip fields, corn fields, you get the idea. I figured that I could take a big chunk out of my commute by "cutting the corner" as it were, and heading diagonally, south-by-southwest, across this big stretch of farmland. As this neck of the woods is still pitch dark and deserted when I would drive thru, added to the fact that there were few homes or buildings, well...it was just too hard not to put the pedal to the metal and fly down these long, straight roads. I may have even exceeded the posted speed limit once or twice, strictly accidentally of course.
One morning, one of the ones that I may have been speeding a bit, I was tooling along, minding my own business, when my windshield suddenly exploded inward with a sound like that time when your slow cousin Derwin decided to take a potshot at a road sign with a 12-gauge..from the back seat! Now, add to this the freezing cold air rushing into the bowling ball sized hole in my windshield at 80+mph, plus the fact that the safety glass that Ford had so graciously manufactured my windscreen from was now completely opaque from the million or so fractures spiderwebbing across it so I was absolutely blind on a narrow single lane farm road, and you can just imagine how hard I was braking and how tight my, er..."rear exit" was.
When I finally managed to bring my F-250 to a stop (having miraculously avoided several telephone poles) I looked around me at the carnage that had become the cab of my beautiful truck. That's when I noticed that I could now use the carpool lanes as I had a passenger, a small, mangled, winged passenger, but a passenger nonetheless, sitting in the seat next to me. It was also then that I noticed that the hapless mallard had come thru the windshield with enuf force to continue thru the cab and shatter the rear window, as well as to knock it out of it's molding. Lastly I found that I was completely covered in feathers as well wearing every drop of the coffee I had just been sipping prior to the "incident".
So, here I am in the middle of nowhere, 10 miles back to HWY-20, freezing cold and unable to see out the front of my truck (the hole was in the passenger side). I got out, brushed all the feathers off of my person, escorted Mr. Duck/Hamburger into the ditch, and then started on the 15mph, 10 mile trip back to the highway, head hanging out the side window the whole way. Now, I’ve already explained that this area is pretty much devoid of any signs of civilization, but back on the highway there just so happened to be a brand new 24hr, fantabulous, gas & chow Union 76 station, so I beelined for it.
When I finally arrived, frozen stiff, half traumatized and in a less than decent mood, there were only 2 vehicles parked out front; the clerk’s and a Washington State Trooper’s radio unit. I really had no reason to speak to either one as I was only there to get a handful of paper towels to dry all the spilled coffee and to use the payphone. When I walked in I saw the clerk behind the counter and the trooper engaged in idle, 4:15am chit-chat and felt zero desire to join in, so I just walked on by to the restroom and grabbed a handful of those brown John Wayne towels; you know, rough and tough and don’t sh*t off anyone. As I walked back out to my truck I thought that they were both eyeballin’ me kinda hard (the clerk looked as if he was about to give birth), but chalked it up to being the only living soul for 20 miles all around.
When I got out to my truck I opened the door, leaned in and flipped on the dome light. Why I hadn’t turned on the dome when all this first happened I cannot tell you, but I hadn’t. It was then that I thought to myself, "Funny, I don’t remember putting a red filter on that light." The entire cab was bathed in this eery soft, red light. I looked up and saw that the dome light was covered in blood - as was the rest of the cab. Eeew!
I had just started to back away from the horror show in my truck when I heard the distinctive sound of a well-tuned S&W 686 Distinguished Service Combat Revolver being cranked back to full cock. "Do NOT turn around!" said the very edgy Trooper from directly behind me. "Now, put your hands above your head and SLOWLY back-up toward the sound of my voice until I TELL you to stop!" Yikes! Of course I immediately complied, and as I backed away from the truck, now illuminated from within, I saw what he saw: A truck with a huge, gaping hole in the windshield whose edges were literally dripping with bloody chunks of flesh, looking for all the world as tho someone were murdered in the passenger seat with the same shotgun cousin Derwin had infamously used. That wasn’t all. The remainder of the shattered glass was glowing the same eery red that I had seen from the inside. About that time I had apparently backed-up enuf for Mr. Edgy, as he then instructed me to put my hands behind my back while he proceeded to cuff me. This whole day was already right in the pooper as far as I was concerned, and it was only 4:30 in the morning!
I spent the next half hour sitting on the curb next to my truck under the unwavering eye of the Trooper, watching as 4 more radio units pulled in, one after the other. He never took his gun off me or let me speak until he was well backed-up. I can’t say as I blame him.
A little while later I managed to convince them that I wasn’t a homicidal maniac and they un-cuffed me and let me call home for my beloved to come get me. It was at this time that I heard his much-relieved side of that morning’s events.
He had just pulled in for his morning coffee and danish (notice I didn’t say doughnut) and was shootin’ the bull with the clerk, when in walks this sullen, pissed-off looking dude with bloody hands (remember I had picked up the mangled duck to toss him into the ditch), and without a word walks to the restroom. OK, that’s weird. Then, as pissed-off man turns to leave with a huge wad of paper towels, he can see for the first time that the entire right side of the guy’s jacket sleeve, head, and ballcap are also covered in gore. (The warm, wet stuff I had thought was coffee dripping off my face and head right after it’d happened, well…it wasn’t coffee) It was at this point that Mr. Copper decides he’d better follow me out to the parking lot and see what was up. I guess watching as I turned on the bloody dome light, illuminating the gory hole in the windshield, as well as the blood-splattered and shattered rear window was enuf to put it over the top for him. Out comes the sidearm; he figures he’s got a true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool, whack-job killer on his hands, and he’s taking zero chances, especially after watching me waltz right past him, covered in blood and apparently not the least bit worried about it. Cuckoo.
Looking back at it I can see the humor of it all, but in the moment it just plain sucked. The first thing my wife asked me when she showed up was probably what you’re wondering right now: How in the heck did you manage to NOT notice the blood on your arm and head. I never have come up with a good answer for that, other than it was dark when it happened and when I walked into the lit gas station I was too busy looking at the clerk and the Trooper. It’s just one of those things I guess, you know, from the One-Of-Those-Things department. This was not the last time the boyz in blue would mistake me for a phsycho killer, but that’s another story.
O…
One of the drawbacks to insisting on living in the country is that often the highest paying jobs are far away. This was the case for me a few years ago: I was a CNC/Machine shift supervisor for a large prime contractor to Boeing in the Puget Sound area. Now, my family and friends all thought I was nuts when I took the job as it was a whopping 202 mile round trip commute every day! Luckily I had the weekend shift and we only worked Friday-Sunday (but got paid for a full week!), and my wife didn't complain too much about the paycheck either.
Now, as the commute was insane, and I lived on an island to boot, I would usually rise at around 3:00am in order to be on the road by 3:30. Once off the island my route was pretty straightforward; due east on Hwy-20 for 12 miles, then due south on I-5 for much of the remainder. But being a good commuter I soon found ways to snip off 2 minutes here, 5 minutes there, etc.. As it happens the 100 or so square miles of land that lay in the "corner" formed by Hwy-20 and I-5 was all solid farmland. Miles and miles of tulip fields, corn fields, you get the idea. I figured that I could take a big chunk out of my commute by "cutting the corner" as it were, and heading diagonally, south-by-southwest, across this big stretch of farmland. As this neck of the woods is still pitch dark and deserted when I would drive thru, added to the fact that there were few homes or buildings, well...it was just too hard not to put the pedal to the metal and fly down these long, straight roads. I may have even exceeded the posted speed limit once or twice, strictly accidentally of course.
One morning, one of the ones that I may have been speeding a bit, I was tooling along, minding my own business, when my windshield suddenly exploded inward with a sound like that time when your slow cousin Derwin decided to take a potshot at a road sign with a 12-gauge..from the back seat! Now, add to this the freezing cold air rushing into the bowling ball sized hole in my windshield at 80+mph, plus the fact that the safety glass that Ford had so graciously manufactured my windscreen from was now completely opaque from the million or so fractures spiderwebbing across it so I was absolutely blind on a narrow single lane farm road, and you can just imagine how hard I was braking and how tight my, er..."rear exit" was.
When I finally managed to bring my F-250 to a stop (having miraculously avoided several telephone poles) I looked around me at the carnage that had become the cab of my beautiful truck. That's when I noticed that I could now use the carpool lanes as I had a passenger, a small, mangled, winged passenger, but a passenger nonetheless, sitting in the seat next to me. It was also then that I noticed that the hapless mallard had come thru the windshield with enuf force to continue thru the cab and shatter the rear window, as well as to knock it out of it's molding. Lastly I found that I was completely covered in feathers as well wearing every drop of the coffee I had just been sipping prior to the "incident".
So, here I am in the middle of nowhere, 10 miles back to HWY-20, freezing cold and unable to see out the front of my truck (the hole was in the passenger side). I got out, brushed all the feathers off of my person, escorted Mr. Duck/Hamburger into the ditch, and then started on the 15mph, 10 mile trip back to the highway, head hanging out the side window the whole way. Now, I’ve already explained that this area is pretty much devoid of any signs of civilization, but back on the highway there just so happened to be a brand new 24hr, fantabulous, gas & chow Union 76 station, so I beelined for it.
When I finally arrived, frozen stiff, half traumatized and in a less than decent mood, there were only 2 vehicles parked out front; the clerk’s and a Washington State Trooper’s radio unit. I really had no reason to speak to either one as I was only there to get a handful of paper towels to dry all the spilled coffee and to use the payphone. When I walked in I saw the clerk behind the counter and the trooper engaged in idle, 4:15am chit-chat and felt zero desire to join in, so I just walked on by to the restroom and grabbed a handful of those brown John Wayne towels; you know, rough and tough and don’t sh*t off anyone. As I walked back out to my truck I thought that they were both eyeballin’ me kinda hard (the clerk looked as if he was about to give birth), but chalked it up to being the only living soul for 20 miles all around.
When I got out to my truck I opened the door, leaned in and flipped on the dome light. Why I hadn’t turned on the dome when all this first happened I cannot tell you, but I hadn’t. It was then that I thought to myself, "Funny, I don’t remember putting a red filter on that light." The entire cab was bathed in this eery soft, red light. I looked up and saw that the dome light was covered in blood - as was the rest of the cab. Eeew!
I had just started to back away from the horror show in my truck when I heard the distinctive sound of a well-tuned S&W 686 Distinguished Service Combat Revolver being cranked back to full cock. "Do NOT turn around!" said the very edgy Trooper from directly behind me. "Now, put your hands above your head and SLOWLY back-up toward the sound of my voice until I TELL you to stop!" Yikes! Of course I immediately complied, and as I backed away from the truck, now illuminated from within, I saw what he saw: A truck with a huge, gaping hole in the windshield whose edges were literally dripping with bloody chunks of flesh, looking for all the world as tho someone were murdered in the passenger seat with the same shotgun cousin Derwin had infamously used. That wasn’t all. The remainder of the shattered glass was glowing the same eery red that I had seen from the inside. About that time I had apparently backed-up enuf for Mr. Edgy, as he then instructed me to put my hands behind my back while he proceeded to cuff me. This whole day was already right in the pooper as far as I was concerned, and it was only 4:30 in the morning!
I spent the next half hour sitting on the curb next to my truck under the unwavering eye of the Trooper, watching as 4 more radio units pulled in, one after the other. He never took his gun off me or let me speak until he was well backed-up. I can’t say as I blame him.
A little while later I managed to convince them that I wasn’t a homicidal maniac and they un-cuffed me and let me call home for my beloved to come get me. It was at this time that I heard his much-relieved side of that morning’s events.
He had just pulled in for his morning coffee and danish (notice I didn’t say doughnut) and was shootin’ the bull with the clerk, when in walks this sullen, pissed-off looking dude with bloody hands (remember I had picked up the mangled duck to toss him into the ditch), and without a word walks to the restroom. OK, that’s weird. Then, as pissed-off man turns to leave with a huge wad of paper towels, he can see for the first time that the entire right side of the guy’s jacket sleeve, head, and ballcap are also covered in gore. (The warm, wet stuff I had thought was coffee dripping off my face and head right after it’d happened, well…it wasn’t coffee) It was at this point that Mr. Copper decides he’d better follow me out to the parking lot and see what was up. I guess watching as I turned on the bloody dome light, illuminating the gory hole in the windshield, as well as the blood-splattered and shattered rear window was enuf to put it over the top for him. Out comes the sidearm; he figures he’s got a true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool, whack-job killer on his hands, and he’s taking zero chances, especially after watching me waltz right past him, covered in blood and apparently not the least bit worried about it. Cuckoo.
Looking back at it I can see the humor of it all, but in the moment it just plain sucked. The first thing my wife asked me when she showed up was probably what you’re wondering right now: How in the heck did you manage to NOT notice the blood on your arm and head. I never have come up with a good answer for that, other than it was dark when it happened and when I walked into the lit gas station I was too busy looking at the clerk and the Trooper. It’s just one of those things I guess, you know, from the One-Of-Those-Things department. This was not the last time the boyz in blue would mistake me for a phsycho killer, but that’s another story.
O…