Lies My Father Told Me

The biggest lie my Dad ever told me was that it was impossible to hit a bird with the car. I was naive and fifteen, and learning how to drive. He was serious about teaching me how to drive, and I drove to school every day, with him teaching me all the way.

We had a long stretch of road going 35mph for about 5 minutes to get out of our neighborhood, and the road was constantly strewn with roadkill. Mostly rabbits, but a few skunks and squirrels came about from time to time. Sadly, once or twice I did see a cat. I always hoped it was a stray and never belonged to anyone.

I was always afraid of hitting something. My dad told me "There are enough rabbits in the world, don't worry about running them over. In fact, it's worse to slow down. Birds are smarter than you think; they actually know how much time it takes to fly across the road."

"But Dad," I countered, "What about all those birds I see on the road to school everyday? Obviously they weren't smart enough to know...those are a lot of birds! I don't want to hit a bird!"

Dad replied "Those are birds that just happened to die on the road. Then people just ran over them. The chances of you hitting a bird are slim to none, you have nothing to worry about."

So, I stopped worrying about it. I kept on driving, and I never hit a thing. Until my junior year of high school.

One memorable day I was driving the road with my dad, and out of the corner of my eye I see a bird swoop down. I don't worry, because birds are smarter than you'd think. It'll clear my car before I even come close.

Needless to say, this particular bird was...not having a good day. I didn't hit it with my tires, but It only cleared one tire before I got there. I panicked and looked in my rear-view mirror to see the bird spinning out of control before giving up and hitting the pavement. For a moment I was overcome with guilt.

Then I got angry. I yelled "YOU TOLD ME I'D NEVER HIT A BIRD! YOU LIED TO ME!"

I never trusted him with flaky facts like that again. :-)