I have a request.
It’s pretty simple. It doesn’t involve chain mail, nigerian bank accounts or spam statuses.
When you’re driving, please do the speed limit. Because, you know, even on a main road in town, it’s pretty unlikely that you won’t be able to stop when that cat crosses the road.
Yes. It was dumb of the cat. But it doesn’t know any better.
So now you’ve hit it. I have another request. What’s happened can’t be undone. A life has ended, possibly your fault, possibly just the hand fate, life or luck has dealt you. Not nearly as bad as the hand the family looking for that cat in the morning has been dealt though.
My second request is that if you have indeed hit the cat, please stop. There’s a button on your dash with a red triangle on it. Those are your hazard lights. Pull over. Put them on. And go back.
There’s a slim chance. A very slim one, that the cat is still alive. Check. I am begging you. If it is you put it in your car and you get it to a vet. Even if it’s only to put it out of it’s misery quicker. That is one of the many responsibilities you take on when you get behind the wheel. Once again, it’s not fun, but it’s a whole lot better than what the cat is going through, and what the family looking for it are.
Next request. If the cat is indeed dead, in pieces even. Please, please. Steel yourself. Move it off the road. Try to find the owner. Because as awful as it is, wandering around the block, calling, looking under buildings, in bushes, growing increasingly more desperate before you find that cold lump of fur, or some one tells you the worst has happened, it is much, much worse to stand on the flush median, looking at what has been reduced to a long dark red smear, with some spindly bones that could be ribs, trying to figure out if that one, solitary paw, could be from the cat you’re looking for. And knowing that even with a shovel, a shovel, you couldn’t bring back enough to bury, and that no matter what you do, you can’t bring him home. The cat that was rubbing around your legs just a day prior, and playing with a piece of grass. The cat who did no more harm than miss the litterbox sometimes.
How hard is it to stop, compared to that?