A week ago this past Friday, one of the strangest thing I've ever seen happened.

It was a little after 10pm on a Friday, the wife was asleep or nearly so, and I was in my office playing Madden 2006 (and kicking some royal ass, I must say) when the phone rang. It was my 15 year old nephew from across the street. He and a buddy and my 9 year old nephew were home alone as the BIL and SIL had gone to a fundraiser in a nearby town.

Anyway, the nephew asks "Did you just do something to our front porch?"

My answer: "Ummm...no, dude. I'm totally kicking everyone's ass in Madden 2006. Have you seen it?"

Nephew: "Uh no. But there's a dead deer on our front porch."

Me: Silence, followed by "what did you say?"

Nephew: "I said there's a dead deer on our front porch. Someone just threw a dead deer on our porch."

Me: "I'll be right over."

So I told the wife where I was going and headed out to take a look. But before I could see anything, it hit me. I was at the end of my driveway and the stink was so damned bad that I thought I was going to throw up. It was awful.

So I covered my nose and mouth with my shirt and continued on, only to find a doe that looked to be between 125-150 pounds lying ass-first hanging off the steps to their front porch. There was no viscera to speak of, so this deer had either died of natural causes or internal trauma as a resut of being hit by a car.

But what I did know for sure is that it fucking stank!! BAD!!!

Then came all of the "I don't know who'd do this" and the "why do you think it was one of my friends" or "what are we gonna do with it?"

Also, my 9 year old nephew was pretty freaked out. Enough so that, at one point, he came out front with his BB gun, apparently in an effort to protect his property from future Odocoileus virginianus assaults. (I looked that up just to sound fancy. I was looking for something like bovine or porcine or equine, but that'll have to do).

So the BIL and SIL decided to abandon their cocktail party / dinner and head home early to address the "deering." Upon arrival, the BIL was equally taken aback by the stench, but being the tough guy that he is, he grabbed a hoof and dragged that stinky thing to the curb.

I immediately cried foul, stating that I was "pretty sure it was against the covenants of our neighborhood to throw dead animal carcasses in the road, and that if he didn't remove it, I'd be forced to file a complaint. Oh, and that damn thing stinks anyway, but it's worse now that it's twice as close to my house as it was before, jerk."

So the BIL backed out the pickup, grabbed a front and back leg, and heaved it into the back of his shiny F-150 and headed on down the road abou a mile, where he unceremoniously threw the deer into the grass on the side of the road.

So with the source of the stank gone, it was time to start guessing at suspects. I decided that it was fair to rule out anyone with a car or SUV or any enclosed vehicle, as there was no way anybody would have put that sthinky shit in the back of mom's Toyota Camry or her Expedition, so narrowing it down to a pickup was probably the way to go.

I immediately thought of one boy with a maroon truck but was told that wasn't likely because that boy goes to church. WTF?

I reminded all involved that this was likely not one kid that did this, so we were looking for two or more in a now sort of identified black (looking) pickup truck. I told the nephew to think of anyone that had a truck or had a friend with a truck. I also advised him to not say anything to anyone about it or if he heard anything about it, but to tell his dad and myself only.

I figure that since

A: teenagers can't keep their mouths shut about anything, it shouldn't take too long to find out who did it.

2: Two sizeable grown men can probably scare the ever loving shit out of nearly any 16 year old boy, that my Uncle Todd and myself could have a little fun with this at the expense of the guilty party or parties.

It's been ten days and I'm frankly more than a little shocked to not know anything at this point. But believe me, we'll find out and when we do, it's gonna be fun...