My close encounter with a big funny-looking dog.

[Rain Man]

My company does a lot of different kinds of work, and one of the things we do involves standing around on street corners watching drivers.

Sometimes they're busy street corners and sometimes they're not, and today I found myself on a very quiet street corner in a residential area in the middle of Colorado Springs. Other than the occasional car, there wasn't much action since it was a little cul-de-sac area.

It was my last stop of the day, and it was getting dark. Visibility was starting to wane pretty badly, especially in areas away from the street light I was camped under.

I'm standing there all bundled up because it's cold outside, and since there aren't a lot of cars driving by I'm thinking about other things like Cheerios and those cow things on the fronts of trains. At some point I snap out of my musings, and all of a sudden something catches my eye. About 75 feet from me, just a silhouette in the darkness, is the biggest freaking dog I've ever not quite seen, standing right in the middle of the street. I kid you not - this thing was up to my chest and was built like a horse. I couldn't see anything but it's shape, but it's head was down and it was dead silent and it was coming toward me, which are three things I don't want to see in a giant dog.

The car's off to my right at about 2 o'clock in airplane terms, about 50 feet away, and it's locked. There's no way I can make a break for it since the shadow dog is coming in basically right off my prow at about 11 o'clock. All I'm holding is a clipboard and pen, and there's nothing handy in the form of rocks or sticks, and I'm really starting to sweat. It keeps moving toward me.

Well, I start sidling to my right, and pull my keys out of my pocket, and just hope that maybe it will hold off until I can sidle all the way to the car. I move right, and move right, and then suddenly I end up with the animal between me and a street light down the block.

It was a freaking deer.

It came another 20 feet or so, and then wandered off to attack a bush. That thing had me scared half to death.