Hooter

I have worked many night shift jobs driven down many roads at night and encountered many animals in the road, in my 38 years of driving; turtles, snakes, deer, cows, even horses being ridden at night. I have even totaled vehicles hitting them. Nothing I have encountered or hit in the road, had prepared me to even fathom what I saw this night. Driving into work on a long, winding 2-lane road as I regularly do around 9:30pm, I see something in the middle of the road ahead. At first, it's merely a dark lump in the distance, and I assume it's just a small animal that was previously hit and left there.

As I approach closer, my headlights illuminate something large, moving, eyes glowing back at me as it turns to gaze into my headlights. I begin to slow down and honk my horn in hopes to scare the animal away from it's roadkill meal, and low and behold it frantically flies up, and fails to clear my windsheild as it is face-planted directly into it, with huge haunting eyes staring at me for a split second, and feathers exploding upon impact, just before sliding up the windshield and over my vehicle.

In utter shock, I slam on my brakes and come to a complete stop, realizing I had just hit the biggest barn owl I had ever seen, up close and personal, and I may have just killed it! My mind races "Oh NO! Are owls federally protected like eagles? Am I going to jail?" I exit my vehicle, covering the immediate area around it, shining my flashlight around in hopes to find this owl, in case it is injured and needed medical help. Then again I think, "if I do find it, do I call a veterinarian?" As I search all around my vehicle, I see feathers everywhere. I search and search, but never found the owl. Did it somehow survive and fly away, missing all these feathers? Did I somehow fall asleep and dream that I hit an owl instead? Am I still asleep and driving, dreaming that I am stopped? I get back into my vehicle, and drive on into work. Apparently I wasn't just dreaming...

At work, I tell my coworkers about hitting an owl in the road. They do not believe my story, asking me if I picked up any feathers and kept them to show for proof. I tell them it wasn't exactly a priority on my mind, considering being late for work is an absolute assurance I would receive a negative mark in my file for attendance. I was already running later than planned, so I hurried on into work, trying not to exceed the posted speed limits.

In the morning after work, driving back home, I returned to the scene where I had hit the owl. Surprisingly, there wasn't a feather in sight, as if someone had cleaned them up during the night. No sign of an owl (dead or alive) either. Now I begin to question my own sanity. "Did I really hit an owl last night?" I ask myself...

About a week goes by, and by then I had almost forgotten about the entire owl incident. But arriving at work one night, I hear something on the nearby water tower in the darkness (picture of actual water tower included) and I look up. Low and behold! It's a large barn owl with hateful glowing eyes, noticeably crossed from the impact with my windshield at highway speeds, missing at least half it's feathers, calling out; "WHO? WHO? WHO hit me, WHO???" That crazy owl somehow tracked me down! That crazy cross-eyed owl hung around for at least 2 weeks, every night calling out the same thing; "WHO? WHO? WHO hit me, WHO???" I believe animal control was called and it may have been removed, because I haven't seen it since. But, the story remains to be told, time and time again, about "Hooter, the Unwise Owl".