[culcune]

I have to laugh because I hit a dog the other night. I don't think I mentioned that I work as an independent contractor for a local courier company here in the Yuma metropolitan area (much, much bigger that you would think since it includes miles of county areas) after my day job. I had a delivery out in California (Yuma is on the California state line as well) in a way out place. Most of what I courier is food from restaurants that don't usually deliver (think Doordash, Ubereats, Grubhub, Postmates, etc). The customer I had delivered to several times lives on a 2-lane road several miles north of Yuma. This customer lives near a 'terror' dog (Chihuaha) that chases me for several hundred feet. I always have this dog on my mind. What I wasn't prepared for was a much larger dog about 2 miles out. It dashed across the road, and started chasing me, as well as its buddy, and I was able to outrun both of them. Well, on the way back following the drop off (and getting chased a second time by the reliable neighbor's Chihuhua). I forgot where I saw the larger dogs, and sure enough, out of the darkness, came the terror, and BUMP! as it tried biting my scooter, I felt a solid thud of my kickstand hitting the dog squarely in the head at about 50 mph. I glanced back but only could see the second dog trying to pick up where its (fallen?) buddy had relented, so I dared not double back. If it makes anyone feel better, the customer ordered something else, and I reluctantly took the order, but where I remembered hitting the dog, there was no sign of anything and I did look both ways both going to the customer's home and on my way back to Yuma following the second delivery.