As a cat owner I feel your pain. I’d be upset if I ever hit someone’s pet.
But if I may, I have a bit of a humorous story about running over animals (I know, just bear with me). At the very least hopefully you’ll know you’re not the only one traumatized by an event like this.
So I’m like 8 years old?, maybe younger, and my parents, my sister (3 years older than me) and I are making one of our regular treks thru the prairies. I probably liked in Sask at the time. We’re in an old school early 90s Aerostar minivan. Cruising down the Sasky highway when my old man sees a family of ducks crossing the road. Not enough time to stop, with my mom shouting, my sister and I calling out for my dad to be mindful of the ducks, he smokes...something. We’re not sure. There’s a thud and some feathers but it looked like the ducks were scrambling so maybe we just skimmed one of the ducks. At the very least my dad appeared to miss the half dozen or so chicks, but did he hit mama duck?
About 30 minutes later in the next podunk town we drive thru my dad stops at a Fas Gas. We all rush out. The gas jockey, some gruff small town looking guy is waiting at the pump (ah the good old days of full serve).
Right as my sister and I step around the front and my mother proclaims “oh I hope it isn’t the mother goose” (duck? I don’t know, it had wings), the heartless gas station guy says, as he’s peeling this rather large fowl from our red aerostar’s front bumper, “yep, it’s the mother alright” and proceeds to place the large corpse of the duck into a big garbage barrel.
But it doesn’t end there. Someone, i can’t recall who, says “oh but I hope her little chicks are ok” and without missing a beat crusher of dreams small town gas station guy says, in a tone like he’s responding to how he's enjoying the summer day and no mind to the permanent childhood scars he’s creating, “not likely, without the mother they’ll be lunch for a coyote”.
My childhood ended that day. That’s all I have to say about that.
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