Some people are lucky enough to encounter forks in the road.
My daughter and I are driving north on I-495 in route to do
a surprise birthday errand in Portsmouth, NH.
We are delivering a cake to a restaurant that is the location of her
fiance's birthday dinner later in the evening, so we are careful not to change
lanes too suddenly or let ourselves get so close to other cars that a sudden
stop would be necessary. The cake is
secure in a box and surrounded by multiple blankets in the back of my
vehicle. Nothing is going to distract us
from our mission. Nothing.
Except a hawk.
We are trucking along, minding our own business, when we
notice there is a giant hawk sitting in the median strip. Well, not sitting so much as openly sunning
and relaxing, as if it is in an open field somewhere or on a crag inspecting
the minions, searching for its next meal.
Between the two high-speed lanes.
On the ground. Nonchalantly. Surrounded by traffic whizzing along in
excess of 80 mph.
A hawk.
One might expect to see just about anything in the median of
I-495: seagulls, deer, trash, empty
kegs, state police cars, tire treads, furniture, clothing, drunken hobos. Hawks, however, are not a common sight just
hanging out sucking in the carbon monoxide.
They're usually flying relatively high above the roadway or perching
sinisterly in the naked trees, eyeing passing cars with malcontent.
We don't give Lazy Hawk another thought until we are on the
return trip, heading southbound from Portsmouth. As we approach the same vicinity, we suddenly
spot a giant hawk swooping down into our lane, dive-bombing directly at my
windshield. It seems to be having some
difficulty staying airborne, and its stomach bulges beneath it like a lead balloon. It appears that the hawk has just eaten -- a
rabbit, perhaps, or possibly a dog or entire marching band or maybe even NJ
governor Christie.
We slow the car down as much as we can in a full traffic
situation, and at the last moment, the bloated behemoth arcs left and barely
misses the car. Had we hit the freaking
thing, there is little if any doubt that we'd be replacing the windshield at
best, replacing a totaled car and picking glass out of our eyes at worst.
Thank goodness we are on the trip home because the cake may
not have survived our 70-mph tactical maneuver, and, had we actually crashed,
I'm not sure the hawk would've survived eating cake that would be spewed across
three lanes of the highway.
For sure, if it happened that the cake hit the pavement,
that fork in the road might come in handy after all.
