Hindsight Smells like Regret

 Hindsight Smells like Regret

By Bobby Neal Winters

I went out to my truck one morning--which was parked parallel facing east as it almost always is when I’m home--and I looked west down the street.  About fifty feet away, there was in the middle of the street an armadillo perfectly balanced on his back facing up.

This was an armadillo in mint condition.  He was perfect, every scale in place.  

The only thing wrong with him was that he was dead.

Standing to his side, getting ready for a meal, was a crow.  The crow had not yet breached the carcass.  He just stood there.

There were many things I could’ve done, should’ve done at that point, most of which I will get into later. What I did do was take a picture and post it to Facebook.  I put up some witty remark about the crow having knocked out the armadillo. 

I thought it was funny.

Then I just drove off.

What happened over the next several weeks could be classified in a number of ways.  The game theoretic way would be “The Tragedy of the Commons”; the religious way would be “Sins of Omission”; the psychological way would be “the Bystander Effect.”

Take your pick.

When an armadillo is killed on a country road, it really doesn’t last too long.  First of all, there would be more than just a crow there to belly-up to the bar.  There would be buzzards, coyotes, and all sorts of other critters, and there would be a lot more of them.

In town--even though we do have a wide variety of fauna wandering around within our city limits--there aren’t quite as many animals hanging around.  In addition, those who are hanging around aren’t here because they like to feed on the road.  Natural selection has taken those out of the system.  

In the country, on a country road, there would be faster traffic that would not take the time to dodge the armadillo and would grind it to bits.  This would allow the bacteria and the rain to dispose of the organic remains in relatively short order.

Neither of these things happened.

What I should’ve done--instead of taking the damned picture and making the witty remark on Facebook--was to stop; turn around; go to my workshop; get a trash bag and a shovel; put the armadillo into the bag; put the bag into the trash bin.

But I didn’t have that plan worked-out in my head.

This armadillo was not on my property.  He was not even directly in front of my house.

I thought that maybe a Policeman would drive by and take care of it.  They often do nice things like that.

I thought that one of my neighbors who was nearer to it would do something. Sometimes that happens.

I thought nature would deal with it in the manner described above.

And, clearly as I am writing this, none of that happened.

What did happen was much slower.

The only living creatures numerous enough and willing enough to deal with the corpse were bacteria.  The bacteria feasted, but slowly.  

You can always count on bacteria.

But bacteria exact a price.

Whenever I mowed--and I mowed several times during this time period--the stench was thick in the air.

Thick.

And while there wasn’t enough traffic driving over the armadillo to grind it away, there was enough to break it apart and spread it.  I purposefully left in the last “it” there. Pronouns are blunt, but I don’t want to make this too sharp.

Some of you might have had the thought that we’ve gotten a lot of rain this spring and that would help.  I thought that.  

No.

There is only a certain amount of sin that rain will wash away, at least quickly.

Everytime I smelled “it” was a reminder. Everytime the stench breached my nostrils and my gorge rose was a reminder that I could’ve fixed this in less than five minutes with hardly any effort. 

I can still smell it.  Maybe only in my head.  But it smells like regret.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.