Things encountered on the way to the car

You couldn't tell it on the air, because she's a trouper, but Ramsay Wharton sprained her ankle Monday morning when she fell while walking to her car. She came in and worked anyway, but now she'll be out for the rest of the week. Someone left an object on the pathway and Ramsay, who had both hands full of stuff, didn't see it. All of us, in radio and television, who give you the news as soon as you get up in the morning, obviously have to get up earlier than that in ordered to be prepared, and we have all encountered some strange things commuting at 0-dark-30. We've tripped over toys, bumped into furniture that has been moved, stubbed our toes on packages, because for the sake of people who have normal hours we try to get out of the house and into the car in the dark. We've gone to work with our feet bleeding from sharp things we walked on before our shoes were on. If we make it to the car safely, we encounter drunk drivers and irate street people. "This is my sidewalk!" a guy told me once. "I'm just passing through," I growled back. "You can have it back now." "Hey, thanks," he said. For years my favorite pre-dawn commuting story stemmed from the fact that when I started working for United Press International in Washington, D.C., its world headquarters was in the same block as a number of strip clubs. It is a true story that I once told a lady in an alley, "No thanks, I work here, too." Several years later, after I had gone to WTOP Newsradio, also in Washington, a less humorous but significantly more wonderful thing was encountered on the way to the car. In the middle of one of the coldest and snowiest nights of the winter, I opened my front door and let myself out, only to find, not 10 feet in front of me, a very large white-tailed deer. He looked at me. I looked at him. After an eternity, or maybe 10 seconds, I said, "Well." He turned and walked away across my front yard. He walked with great dignity, the street light illuminating the snowflakes on his antlers, until he got to the road about 30 feet from me. Then he slipped on the ice and fell, which kind of ruined the effect. He clambered to his feet and trotted away. Commuting in the dark can sometimes have effects after you arrive at work. Suddenly you're in a well-lighted room for the first time since you woke up, and that's when someone notices you have one black sock and one blue one.