By now, I hope you’ve read the review of Olive Garden that famed LA food writer Jonathan Gold wrote as a result of a backfired April Fool’s prank.
I expected hilarity. What I didn’t expect was the outpouring of vitriol and amusement by folks in the comments section.
My Favorite: “What an entertaining romp. I came for the review and stayed for the comments. Great fun was had by all.”
I’m a few days tardy in getting this re-posted, but after reading it for a third time, this Freakonomics blog post by James Altucher still has great merit. To wit:
I think 90 percent of people should quit their jobs right now or do something utterly drastic to shake things up. “What would I do?” People ask. “I have responsibilities, mouths to feed, mortgage to pay. You don’t get it.” Yes I do. You throw yourself into the abyss. You get scared. You stay up late at night thinking and thinking and thinking. You feel like the death of emptiness is worse than the slow death of your job. But you’ll figure it out. One by one all of your old colleagues will disappear from your life. They will die.
You’ll still be alive.
Eddie and the gang said it best.
Also, I no longer used the term “employment/unemployment.” I prefer to use “engaged”. Employment with a corporation is indentured servitude. Engagement means you are positively ‘in to’ your work, paid or unpaid. So, when someone asks me: Adam, what are you doing these days? “Well, I’m engaged with a few community organizations, an outdoor equipment start-up, and I’m doing some new media consulting for small businesses and non-profits.”
For the first time in my 14 years of driving, I hit a deer on the highway.
Crusing at 58 MPH, I caught it in my periphery, just at the edge of the headlight’s beam. I had a flash of the deer going through my windshield, and I wanted to avoid that at all costs. It is my wife’s car, after all.
Fortunately, my instincts kicked in. As it ran left-to-right across the highway, I swerved left and eased the brakes but did not stop. I clipped it’s hindquarters with the passenger side of the Civic, and it knocked out my headlight.
I don’t know if it lived or died, and I don’t care. I kept driving, barely losing speed. It was 5AM and I had just left the Dayton International Airport, where I had dropped off the wife and a friend for their trip to Cancun.
I get to go to the Sabres game in Columbus on Saturday with my dad, brother and good friend Steve. Lower bowl seats.
She gets to go to Cancun.
I call that a Push.
When I finally did stop, some 20 miles later at Tim Horton’s (I do have my priorities you know), I discovered that the goddamn deer had not only knocked out my headlight, but cracked the bumper and dented the quarterpanel.
This, among other reasons, is why I hate deer. And why I may take up hunting, despite my dislike of firearms.
This is not my first road encounter with a deer. 13 years ago, my great friend Katie and I were on our way to downtown Rochester and had just left her house near the Erie Canal in Pittsford, New York. Her neck of the woods was literally that – heavily wooded. We weren’t going very fast, 25 or 30 MPH, and a deer darted out in front of us. I slammed on the brakes and watched it run by.
“Be careful! There’s always more than one,” she prophetically said.
Now, I said earlier that I had never hit a deer with my car. That’s true.
Because as I eased off the brake and the car idled forward, a deer slammed into the passenger side quarterpanel of my red 1995 Chevy Lumina LS. It shook it’s head, looked at me like I was the asshole and what was my car doing there anyway, and sprinted into the woods, following it’s friend.
So, technically, before 5:02AM today on the airport access road in Vandalia, Ohio, I had never hit a deer. It had hit me.
Today, I got my revenge.
This, my friends, is why it is good to have comprehensive coverage on your vehicles.
A friend suggested that it would have all been worth it if I had stopped, put its maimed body out of its misery and taken the meat home.
Note to self: In 2011, learn how to field dress a deer. That way, our next encounter will result in a tally of Adam 2, Deer 1.
adam ate the city. 