Deer in the Headlights

Generally speaking, I don't swear except maybe when I stub my toe really hard or in certain painful or stressful situations. I've always thought that chronic swearers are only exhibiting their lack of creativity and small vocabulary.

That being said, a couple of months ago the whole family was in the car at night (I was driving) and we were on a 20 mile drive home on a country highway. My headlights were on low beam and I was driving along chatting with my husband in the passenger's seat when all of a sudden there were 3 deer in the middle of the road. As you know, by the time you realize deer are in your low beams, they're pretty close to the car. I swerved to miss them and said "oh shit" because they startled me and I envisioned slamming into a herd of deer, blood and guts flying everywhere, expensive car damage, and possibly expensive family damage. I thought the sentiment was appropriate.

We didn't hit the deer because I swerved quickly enough (thank goodness), so after everyone calmed down the kids started teasing me about swearing. Ever since then they've been teasing me relentlessly, making snide remarks about it and, whenever we see deer in a field or on TV or anywhere else the kids always ask me, "mom, what are you supposed to say when you see a deer?!"

So yesterday I drove the kids to school because the temp was below zero and I didn't want them walking in the cold. There's still tons of snow here and the roads are really slippery from the compacted snow. We got to the stop sign right at the school and when I stepped on the brake to stop, the car started sliding. I did the requisite turn-into-the-direction-you're-sliding, but we just kept sliding and ended up doing a 180. Of course "oh shit" slipped out of my mouth as we're careening around in a circle with other cars behind me.

So what does my youngest (and most sarcastic) child say as we're spinning on the ice?

"Hey mom, where's the deer?"

What a smart aleck.