Road Kill Karma

Post by Lucy Ball @ My Life As Lucille

I come from a long line of storytellers. My paternal grandfather was one of the best storytellers ever. His were the kind of stories that got better and better every time he told them. He had a thick Swedish accent too, which seemed to make them even more entertaining. His timing and build-up of a story was enthralling even though we had usually heard it many times before.

This is one of my favorites. I call it, Road Kill Karma.

I grew up in a small rural town. The nearest shopping mall was over 80 miles away. So it was kind of a big deal to go to the mall back then.

One winter day, my grandmother and her friend Buella were driving to the mall.

(In case you're wondering, this wasn't Gramma Dearest. This was my other grandmother.)

They were almost there when Buella accidentally ran over a cat with her car. There was only one house within sight so they deduced that the cat must have lived there.

(past tense)

They felt awful. They decided to stop the car and walk up to the house to confess.

“Is that your cat?” Buella asked pointing to the former family feline on the road.

The woman who answered the door replied: “Yes. It was.”

“I feel just terrible. I think it’s dead.” my grandmother admitted. “Is there anything we can do?”

            “Well, can you take it away so my children don’t see it?” the woman asked.

Buella and my grandmother agreed. They rummaged through the trunk of the car and found a heavy shopping bag. They scooped up the bulk of the deflated animal into the bag and put it in the trunk of the car. Their plan was to dispose of the bag in the dumpster at the mall.

Upon arriving at the mall, Buella opened the trunk and took the store bag of killed kitty out. She gingerly set it on the ground next to the car. The dumpster was on the opposite end of the building so they decided they would drive it over after their shopping was finished.

The two of them left the bag on the ground next to the car and headed into the mall. Some time later, they were leaving the shoe store inside the mall when they heard quite a lot of commotion coming from the women’s bathroom.

One woman rushed out of the door shouting for someone to call the paramedics. Apparently, a woman had fainted and was knocked out on the floor in one of the stalls.

A crowd collected as they tend to do when things like this happen. My grandmother and her friend Buella observed as the paramedics arrived. They entered the ladies’ room and went to work. A few moments later, the paramedics emerged with an elderly woman on a gurney. She was still dazed and very still.

And on her lap?

Her purse. And a shopping bag.

THE shopping bag.

The bag my grandmother and her friend had used to contain what was left of the cat they ran over.

I don’t know what the woman was expecting to find when she snatched the bag from the parking lot. Either way, they hauled her and the bag of road kill away to the hospital together.

Meow.