It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife

There are certain activities that lead Rob and me directly into monumental arguments.

1. Playing tennis - SO. ANNOYING. Probably because I took 238 summers of lessons and Rob took 0 - I should be good but I'm not; Rob should be bad but he's not. You'd be annoyed and grumpy, too.
2. Canoeing - Here, I rock. Completely. But Rob can't steer worth anything and won't admit it, even as we float backwards, bump into banks, and almost tip at every partially-submerged rock.
3. Inserting a Christmas tree into a tree stand - Does anyone do this without fighting?
4. Driving - I have every right to throw Rob under the bus on this one as he's rolled two cars with me inside.

This weekend we took #4 Driving to a whole new level when we trekked into Texas Hill Country for the weekend with some friends. I kid you not, we had to have seen (and/or almost hit) over 200 deer between Friday night and Sunday morning. And while I was short of breath from rollover PTS trauma in the passenger seat, Rob took my strangled pleas of "Rob, slow down - Rob, slow down - Rob, slow down" to heart and inched his speedometer down 3 MPH occasionally (and then bumped it right back up when he thought I wasn't looking).

So Saturday night, after we saw a spectacular display of 3,000,000 bats emerging from Old Tunnel near Fredericksburg, Rob must have been feeling slightly more generous and took my advice of trying a different way home to try to avoid the amazingly vast number of deer we almost hit on the way there.

Side Road Success, interpretation option 1:
I was completely right - we didn't see a single deer the entire drive down the 5-mile windy side road that lead to the main highway (which was mainly deer-free). Booyah! I win. Aaaaaaaas usual.

Side Road Success, interpretation option 2:
As we turned onto the 5-mile windy side road, we both exhaled sighs of relief that the road was paved. And then, in the inky country darkness, our headlights illuminated this sign:

And we started laughing. All my white-knuckled I-can't-believe-you're-such-an-insensitive-hack-not-to-slow-down anger and all Rob's I-can't-believe-a-person-can-complain-and-routinely-scream-DEER!-as-much-as-my-obnoxious-wife-can frustration melted away into mirth at the irony.

And then we almost hit three horses.

And two cows.

And a giant (seriously, it was medium-dog-sized) porcupine.

Not to mention the small handful of jackrabbits and the grey fox. But no deer.

Conclusion
So I really don't know who won in the end - maybe both of us. All I know is that we kept giggling with delight and verbally high-fiving the other with "This is the BEST ROAD EVER!!"

In the end on the way home yesterday, Rob and I asked the kids what their favorite part of the weekend was. Out of all the fantastic animals we witnessed and nature we hiked, this is what we got:

Silas: "This rock." [referring to a dusty pebble in his hand]
Jannika: "The dead monarch."

Maybe neither of us won.

But if you're still singing Alanis in your head, I feel maybe a small sense of victory. Just a small one though.