Things You Can’t Unsee

When we lived in Chicago, I saw a lot of weird stuff. Being around that many people day in and day out meant that I had more chances to see things like boxing barges and graffiti-ed public service announcements. We had a bobcat in our neighborhood and our landlord once got sick in our kitchen. But, again, living in a city with 3 million people and taking public transportation everyday meant that the chances of seeing strange and bizarre things were pretty good.

I’m not naive enough to think that once we moved to Louisville, I would stop seeing the weird stuff. Strange things happen everywhere, no matter what the zip code or population. I’ve actually had a pretty good run of not seeing to much of the strange and unusual since we moved down here. Until last night.

Scene: 5:30 pm, in our parking garage. I usually park on one of the upper levels, and when I get to the lowest level I wave the security guard who directs the traffic out through the two exits.

But last night, the security guard got on the elevator with us, which is strange. He got off at the third floor, while my co-workers and I kept going up to our cars. I didn’t give Security Guy much more thought as I buckled myself in and started the spiral descent to the street.

That is, until I got to the third floor, where I saw the security guard standing in an empty parking space, scratching his head and staring down at the ground. As I drove by, I glanced down to see what he was looking at. And then I understood why he was scratching his head in confusion.

He was looking at a severed deer leg.

No, you didn’t read that wrong. He was looking at a SEVERED DEER LEG.

At least, I’m assuming it was a deer leg. It had a hoof, and fur, and looked like it should have been attached to a deer, but then again, it could have been some other woodland creature. I’m not that proficient in animal part recognition, I must admit.

As I drove away (because I was too surprised to stop  and take a picture, but now I really wish I had, because COME ON, how often do you witness something like this?), I tried to imagine the ways in which this poor animal’s limb managed to find its way to the third floor of a parking garage in the urban center of town.

Here’s what I came up with:

1. Someone hit a deer, and this particular limb got caught up in the undercarriage, and fell out while said person was working, and didn’t notice it as they drove away. Theory rejected because the limb was too neatly severed to have been accidental.

2. Someone went hunting this weekend, bagged a deer, did a quick butcher job in the back of their truck, but somehow missed this particular limb while cleaning out the truck bed. Theory rejected because I don’t want to think about a truck with random animal parts hanging around in our parking garage, and really, how do you not notice a spare deer leg hanging around in your truck bed?

3. WILDLIFE MAFIA. Bambi didn’t payback the opossum loan shark, and got extremely knee-capped. Either that, or the Elks are sending a message.

In other words I have no idea. If you have any theories, please share them, because I’d love to figure this out.

And now, after talking about severed animal limbs, I offer the following pretty picture as a palette cleanser. If you read through all of this, you’ve earned it.

See, that should take your mind off of severed limbs. At least until I just mentioned them again, sorry!