A MOMENT WITH MIKE: Don't Anger the Deer

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Mike Garrison

0 May 22, 2018, 10:04 a.m.

By Mike Garrison
LiveRC.com

A Moment with Mike is a weekly opinion column where LiveRC’s Mike Garrison gives his take on hot-button issues, general topics, and conversations within the RC industry. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of LiveRC.

I once read an article that a university spent millions of dollars to do a scientific test to prove that dog’s can be jealous of one another. Unfortunately, no one from the university contacted me prior to this, as I could have saved them a few bucks by simply introducing them to my three dogs – none of which listen to anything I say, UNLESS I say the other one’s name, and then they are all at my feet waiting to steal my attention.

Animals are smart…very smart. I don’t like making people angry, because people's brains are smart enough to remember that, gather some buddies next time, and get revenge on you. I use that same philosophy with animals, as I’ve always been fairly certain that when you make an animal mad, it is smart enough to remember and gather its friends for revenge as well. I am now 100% certain that this is true.

Saturday afternoon my wife and I left our local R/C track, Fastlane Raceway (located in the busy city of Blue Springs, Missouri). As we pulled out of the track onto the highway, not far down the road was a pack of deer standing alongside the road. As one appeared to be stepping out towards the road, I slammed the brakes, yelled a few things at it, and I may or may not have flipped him and his friend off. I ranted for a bit about the “dumb” deer, and we went on about our way.

Sunday morning the owner of Fastlane Raceway posted these photos on the track’s Facebook group page:

Yes folks, that’s right…the deer that I had nearly hit, yelled at, and flipped off, gathered his friend and came back for revenge. They clearly risked their life to change the herds direction on the highway, trace back my tire prints on the road, examine my wheelchair prints in the track's gravel parking lot, and I am pretty sure they even tapped my phone to hear me say, “I may go up to the track and practice tomorrow," - which is rare for me to say or do on a Sunday.

They put all of this together, and proceeded to gallop throughout the rain-soaked muddy track in hopes to ruin my chances of driving on it, and then patiently waited for my arrival to seek further revenge on Sunday morning.

Luckily for me, I overslept and decided to be a good husband and plant flowers on Sunday with my wife instead. Moral of the story here folks; never underestimate the intelligence of an animal, and more importantly never anger or disrespect the animals who live near your favorite R/C track. Who knows what would have happened had I followed through with going my plans to go practicing that day. 

My sincerest apologies to everyone at Fastlane for the added work necessary to fix the track damage incurred because of my inexcusable behavior and language towards the neighboring deer and his friends…it won’t happen again.