Porcupine

Earlier this week, a woman was driving through Arundel, ME on Route 1 at 5:30 in the morning, swerved to avoid hitting a porcupine, crashed into a telephone pole and died. Since the speed limit along that stretch of Route 1 is 50 mph, it is safe to assume she was going at least 50 if not faster.

The very same day, my brother was driving through Kennebunkport, tried to get a large fly out of his jeep by leaning over to open the side window and ran into a telephone pole totaling his jeep. Fortunately, he was only driving about 18 mph. Other than getting a fat lip, he wasn’t hurt. No word on what happened to the large fly.

My brother told me this news, about his jeep, by saying that the good news is that he doesn’t need a new transmission. The bad news is that he totaled his jeep. I think the good news is that he is alive or, as he has been putting it “Not Dead Ted”. After all, the woman in Arundel died in the same sort of accident.

So the moral of these two stories is, ignore creatures that may distract you from driving safe. Better the porcupine die rather than the woman. Rather the fly keeps buzzing around than totaling the jeep.

The other moral of these two stories is, no matter how bad things are, it could be worse. And the key word my brother and I are using is “porcupine”. As in you could have been killed avoiding a porcupine so things could be worse. I think that should be everyone’s key word for appreciating that things are ok because they could be worse.

So, everyone, altogether now…. PORCUPINE!!