The metaphor of the deer

Many moons ago (in college) I was driving on a small, country road in upstate New York ( somewhere around here, if I remember right ).  It was night and it was winter.  A dusting of snow was sprinkling down on the already frozen road, the sides of which were burmed with banks of tight-packed snow and ice with thick forest beyond.

This was college, and I was broke.  I was driving a Nissan Sentra Station Wagon, which was an absolute POS in case you're not familiar with it.

The POS in question

I was going around 60 and came over a hill to discover a deer hanging out in my lane, about half a mile away.  He was a big buck, facing to my left.  I seemed to have plenty of time to work out my options in my head, and it went like this:

a) Swerve around him to the left.  This would bring me into the empty oncoming lane, but I have always heard that a deer will jump forward if frightened, and that would mean he would jump right in front of my car.
b) Swerve around him to the right.  This would bring me right into the frozen snow bank.  Odds were really good that my junky little car would end up in the woods in the middle of nowhere.
c) Jump on my breaks.  The road was frozen and it seemed really likely that the bicycle tires on my car would lose traction and I would end up spinning out in the middle of the road.
d) Get off the gas, steer straight and hope for the best.

Now, it's worth mentioning that I was a truly terrible driver as a teenager.  These scenarios were not academic concepts to me, they were all experienced realities.  I had driven off the road several times (including a roll-over accident that crushed the roof of my car with a tree), I had lost control and entered into flat spins during bad weather, bad road conditions (and honestly sometimes under ideal conditions but bad choices).  I had wrecked 4 or 5 cars by this point IIRC.  I knew my way around crashing a car.

So, I did what they teach you to do in that circumstance.  Without any panicking, I took my foot off the gas and steered toward the right edge of the road.  I knew there wasn't room to get around the deer, but I was hoping he would jump out of the way.  In retrospect, I should have honked my horn, too.

About an hour later the local sheriff was there by the roadside, poking a buck with his foot and pronouncing "yup, he's dead alright.  Do you want to keep him?"

I spent the rest of the year driving a car with a completely smashed up front end, leaking Styrofoam from the bumper (did you know that cheap cars have Styrofoam bumpers??) and with a grill full of fur.

I tried a google image search for "furry bumper" and "fur in my bumper"... I don't recommend it.

There are lots of situations like this.  You can see them coming a mile away, but there isn't anything you can do about it.  In fact, anything you do is likely to make the situation worse.  When you look back at the outcome, it's easy to second-guess, but sometimes the right choice is to limit the downside--not to try to avoid it.