Yall. I almost died the other night. My heart was beating so fast, it felt like it was about to pop out of my chest. And it was all my fault. I let my guard down, and it bit me in my considerable butt.
Ever since I was a young adult, I have ALWAYS checked my backseat when I get in my car.
All the time.
Every time.
You can thank the opening scene from Urban Legends (1998) for that.
But I got old, as people tend to do, and I forgot that axe murderers hide in the back seat.
And I almost died.
The Chicken Store is just down the road from our house. It’s the only thing open in the wee hours of the night, and I needed just a few things. I pulled in and parked, hopped out, and went in the store. I got my things, chatted with the cashier, and then popped back out and slid into my truck just like I’ve done 33 kajillion other times before that night.
Except THAT night, I didn’t do the quick scan of the back seats.
And I should have.
I’d parked directly in front of the very well-lit entrance, after all, but I’d also left the doors unlocked and the windows down.
The store is less than a mile from our house, but it’s still just off the highway, so there’s a length of road after you come out from there that’s just a long flat stretch of bypass highway. I was on that stretch when I heard something rustling in the middle back seat. (It’s a third row.)
I glanced up in the review mirror, but I didn’t really see anything, so at first, I just dismissed it as possible trash rattle from a leftover plastic grocery bag floating around in the floorboard.
But in the same split second I was making that reasonable rationalization to myself, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.
It was not a plastic grocery bag.
With a terrifying and ear-piercing yowl, a creature sprang from the back seat onto my center console next to my right elbow, and began to scream the song of her people in my ear. Loudly.
I jerked in fright and then over-corrected, and almost rolled my Yukon right there on the highway.
I desperately needed Jesus to take the wheel, but I guess he’d already gone to bed for the night, because it was just me and that damn hellcat in there together in that moment, as I fought for control of the truck and simultaneously wondered if being murdered on the highway by a stray cat would be covered on my life insurance policy.
I finally regained control of my truck, and as I pulled onto the shoulder, I don’t know who was more scared and simultaneously pissed off — me or the cat.
I opened the door and let her out, and then sat there for what felt like hours, just relearning how to breathe and thanking all the stars above that no one was hurt.
I drove the last tenth of a mile back to my house, where I pulled in, and then made for DOUBLE DAMN SURE that all the windows were up, in case she went back and told her friends. (I didn’t want my husband to wake up in the morning to a litterbox situation in the floorboards. I’m a good wife like that.)
I need a drink just relieving those death-defying moments.
So, the moral of the story: CHECK YOUR BACKSEAT each and every time you open the car door. You never know who or what might be waiting to spring out from back there.
#TalesFromTheChickenStore
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