Dead deer, dead car

My husband killed a deer. Not that he was hunting for deer. Not that we own a gun or even a bow and arrows – but, we do own a car – and in southern Arkansas that’s a lethal weapon in this deer- infested part of the world.
It was dusk. A pair of deer were chowing down roadside grass until they decided the grass was greener on the other side. They gracefully loped across the road and into the path of my husband’s lethal car. He missed the first one but clobbered the second, rather than hit an oncoming car.
The hood crumpled, the bumper pressed into the radiator and the air conditioner, but the engine continued to run. He drove home and around town for repair estimates . He almost made it home a second time before it slowed, stopped and finally died.
The deer was revenged. The insurance company deemed repairs more costly than the car’s worth. Our best looking car followed the tow truck to junk yard heaven.
It was time to replace our 1987 vehicle with 170,000 miles.
We discussed what we would get in its place.
We had a difference of opinion.
We compromised. For now we would get an older car. When we had a bit more set aside, we would buy a newer car with more luxurious features. Later seems a long ways off.
I went to work and researched the classified ads. My husband went to the Internet and researched websites of dealerships, car auctions and classified ads. For the next couple weeks, he inundated me with details about brands, makes and styles of cars until only I understood one thing: “We are looking for a large, small car with doors, low, high mileage somewhere below the high cost of a used car.”
We checked out two-doors. “But what if we have to travel with more than two people?” I asked. Knock off any listing of a car with two-doors.
He looked at some really good buys without cruise control.
“With all the long distance traveling we do? That little cruise control button provides mighty big road relief.” Eliminate uncontrolled cars from the list of prospective purchases.
He looked at one without air conditioning. I merely raised my eye-brows at the mention of a car without air conditioning. When we moved here from a northern state, we had a car without air conditioning. A 12-minute drive to church in the middle of the summer guaranteed everyone the fashionable wind-blown look of one who just visited a sauna. That car quickly melted off our list of prospects.
I can live with an automatic transmission. My husband adores the penny pinching qualities of a manual transmission. There was no compromise, it would be a manual transmission.
Two weeks of searching and we at least knew what we had to have: Four doors, cruise control and manual transmission in an older car, in our price range.
Finally we found a car that matched every detail and had a few extras of its own – including a long scratch down the side. We now have a white station wagon, a red mini-van and a blue sedan lined up in our drive. What better colors for a red-blooded American with lethal weapons powerful enough to down a deer?
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)