Merry Christmas, or Happy New Year, or hell, I’ve beaten Valentine’s Day, right?

OK, OK. It’s been two months. Thank you to the four Acts of Davis readers (hi, Mom!) who have called/written/facebooked and asked me if we were OK or if we had unexpectedly moved to China. It has been a crazy last two months with nothing in particular going on, but just busy enough that I fall into bed every night wondering where another day has gone. The good news is that since it’s been so long since I have posted anything, I can now cherry-pick which adventures to share. You’ll get the cream of the crop. The funniest of the funny. OR, you’ll get…

Buddy the Deer.

Scott’s parents have a lake house on Pickwick Lake, in West Tennessee. We spend as much time there as possible. It is lovely, relaxing, and apparently inhabited by a deer who thinks he is a Dachshund and tries to bully his way into the house, and at one surreal point, into our car. He loves to have his head rubbed and enjoys grapes. I swear I am not making this up.

Behold, Buddy the Deer waiting for us at the front door.

Then Buddy wanted to help Scott unload our luggage from the car-topper. I can just see him thinking, “I thought these humans rode inside the cars, not climbed on TOP of them. This human is strange.”

Next Buddy tried to unpack our bags for us. He eventually left a pile of Buddy-droppings right next to them, which resulted in a lot of un-Christmas-like language from my husband.

What is not captured on film is the part of our afternoon when we accidentally left the driver’s side door open while we went inside for a moment. When I returned, Buddy had squished himself into the driver’s seat. I have seen many strange things in my life, but a young whitetail buck in the driver’s seat of our Tahoe might very well be the weirdest. I tried to talk him out. I rationalized that deer do not belong in cars, but Buddy just kept staring at me with those giant eyes, like *I* was the one who was behaving strangely. All I could think was that I needed to get him out of the car before Scott came out, saw a wild animal prepared to drive off in his car, and left a pile of Scott-droppings.

I pulled. I pushed. I am quite sure that if we had a video of me trying to get that deer out of the front seat of Scott’s car, I would be a YouTube sensation. At one point, I attempted to LIFT the deer out. Do you know how heavy deer are? Also, I don’t want to be rude, but up close and personal, Buddy could have used some Axe body wash. Buddy must have gotten a little nervous with this crazy woman trying to pick him up, because he passed gas. Now I am trying to figure out not only how to rid my husband’s car of a wild animal, but also how to explain that I was NOT the one who made it smell that way. Can you just see me arguing that case to an attorney? “No, Scott, it wasn’t me! A deer climbed up into your car, tried to drive it, tooted, and then ran off.” After that tale, Scott might finally break down and send me away to the funny farm.

In the end, I prevailed and Buddy hopped out. He gave me a “you are NO fun” look and continued down the road.  I should have known then that it was going to be a strange Christmas!