Mayhem

Not for the squeamish.

I was forced to make a very rapid stop driving home the other night, braking hard and to the point that the tires slipped just a bit, to give you that wee, though still unnerving, screech, all to avoid nailing a goat with the Dogwagon and making a jumbo-sized serving of domestic animal puree with the grill. Being neither my van nor my goat, such an accident would be well short of tragic, but I would be saddled with certain post accident responsibilities.

Scot once biffed a bunny with my Toyota, whacking it in the noggin with the right edge of the bumper. The impact twirled the rabbit onto the shoulder, out of the path of the traffic to follow. There was no damage to the car. It was a perfect hit. Whacking a goat, I surmise, would not be so clean and would probably cause some damage, damage that I would have to report to the Ministry of Transport and Works, our Client, and the owner of my vehicle.

When I was assigned the van, filed in the glove box was the Ministry’s “First Accident Report”. Stapled to it was the Ministry’s “Final Accident Report”. Here lies a source of confusion.

I can understand filing an accident report, but one would think that the Ministry would be able to determine if it was my first accident just by counting the number of forms that I filed prior to the filed form. And, since I need to drive here until the end of this assignment, I can never rightfully assure the Client that any particular accident will be my final one. In addition, both forms are on legal sized paper, which I find totally annoying.

As such, I will do my darndest not to collide with anything that will leave a mark. This is one of the toughest parts of this assignment and, sad to say, I am not entirely successful in this regard. I got hit by a wayward football while passing the playing fields in Sandy Bay one afternoon, which left a small and as of yet unreported dent behind the right passenger door. And, while executing an unanticipated five point turn in town, I backed into a square lamp post, which put a small crease in the bumper. I will probably blame both of these on the Dent Fairy when the day comes that I give back my vehicle.

But I have yet to hit an animal, despite their massive roadside populations. Every other day, it seemed, somebody else’s car was striking dead one thing or another - cats, dogs, cows, pigs - all sorts of farm animals and household pets. But in our early days of island life, I do not remember any sightings of dead goats, despite their ubiquitousness.

I used to think that goats possessed a special ability to avoid fatal contact with motor vehicles. Oftentimes, in our first few months here, I would see them browsing along the highway, with their goat butts projecting into the line of cars, or relaxing en masse on the shoulder and pavement, yet never did I see a dead one. Once, however, after months of seeking, I did (noting large X’s where its eyes should have been), and then another, and then my interest was piqued and, geek engineer that I am, I started to collect data.

Roadkill is not at all uncommon in the States, as evidenced by the ever-popular vacation pastime Roadkill Bingo and The Roadkill Cookbook (undoubtedly influenced by Granny’s cooking segments on the Beverly Hillbillies). Deer die. Opossum operish. Bunnies buy it. Skunks are squashed. Raccoons get really rumpled after repeated rollovers. But what binds these animals together (besides muscle, sinew, and molecular bonding) is that they tended to be wild, or at least untamed, prior to their demise. On Jamaica, the subjects of roadkill statistics are inclined towards domesticity.

So, morbid or no, here they are,... in the missive that took a year to write,... my Fresh Kills data for the year 2000, a summary of dead things sighted through my windscreen.

Dogs 54
Cats 36
Mongeese 24
Goats 18
Cows 16
Pigs 5
Chickens 5
John Crows 3
Rodents 1
Snakes 1
Other Birds 1
Donkeys 0
Humans 0
Total Dead Things 164

Obviously, dogs are the most stupid of beasts here, and man is the smartest (tied, at least, with the donkey). This is where my theory falls apart, as it is probably not the big brains which keeps the humes from getting offed in larger numbers, but more likely the fact that, should you kill one, you get to spend some time in a Third World prison (if the deceased friends and family do not chop you to death in retaliation before you can turn yourself in to the local constabulary). Not so with the donkey, which proves that it is smarter than man. Go figure.

As anyone who passed Statistics on the first (or even second) attempt can tell you, I need more data. All I can justifiably glean from what data I have is the fact that I see more dead cows than dead pigs, and more dead pigs than dead chickens, which is a lot more dead cows and pigs and chickens in the last year than you would see along the highways and byways of the United States in a lifetime. To make a valid statement regarding the relative intelligence of these critters, I need to know something about the number of animals not killed, where they live in relation to the road, if they had a happy childhood, and other such nonsense.

All I really wanted to know was the number of goat warriors that sailed their way to goat Valhalla, since they were obviously no longer immune to the dangers of crossing the road. Next year, though, after another twelve months of data collection, I will get to hypothesize on the development of trends in animal mortality. Then the true analysis can begin.

Until then, I am a little bored with my commute, yet still irie. Read More......