So there I was, just riding along early one morning on my way home from work, lost in my own thoughts, and as I approached the Holidome on Second Street, I heard a rustling to my right, just beyond a stand of evergreens.

Assuming the noise to be coming from a raccoon or fox, I pedaled on.

The row of evergreens ended, and I found myself staring eyeball-to-eyeball with a deer. Three or four more bolted away. The one closest to me gave me the stink eye, then did that tail-shaking, change-of-direction thing that deer do so well and took off after his pals.

It wasn’t my first near-deer experience. Or is that deer near experience?

Like any Kansan, I’m used to seeing the beasties all over during the spring and fall and rut and … well, pretty much all the time, really.

And when I’m in the relative safety of my behemoth SUV, though I’d be loathe to bash into Bambi, I don’t really ever worry about my own safety.

But more than once during — or immediately after — a two-wheeled close encounter of the venison kind, I can’t help but be thankful not to have run afoul of a hooved menace.

Once I was cycling out by the Clinton Lake Softball Complex and saw a deer running from the YSI Fields in my direction. It jumped in the pond separating us and headed right for me, eyes bulging, nostrils flaring. I rode along the bike path and every time I sped up or slowed down, the deer seemed to change its trajectory to match. It reached shore, headed right for me, then at the last minute veered away, cleared the bike path in one graceful leap and sped off toward the trafficway.

Had it not changed course, that somebuck would have done a number on little ol’ me and my bike. A quick Google revealed big, old bucks can weigh in excess of 250 pounds — more than 50 pounds more than me and my bike together. And this fella had a heck of a head of steam.

Not long after that, I found myself in a worse near-deer-death experience. Riding out by Clinton Lake, I looked to my left to see the cutest fawn I’d ever seen, still spotted and wobbly on its cute little fawn legs.

I slowed down to, erm, fawn over it when I noticed mama deer to my right.

Sandwiched between the two, I crazily wondered if that old outdoorsy saying about never coming between a mother bear and her cub carried over to the deer realm.

Compounding the problem, a car was approaching the three of us from the far left, and I had a terrible vision of being trampled by mama deer just as baby deer bolted in front of the looming Chevy. Talk about tragedy.

So I did the only thing I could think of, riding over the median in front of the fawn, scaring it toward mama deer and away from the car and, no doubt, causing the driver — who, I’m sure, hadn’t seen either animal — to wonder if I’d lost my ever-loving mind.

Both deer pranced off to the woods to safety, without so much as a glance back. You’re welcome.

And then there was the time, again riding home from work early in the a.m., when I encountered a half dozen deer a block from my house. I live in a residential neighborhood, mind you, so deer aren’t a common sight.

There were two deer to my right and four to my left, so I figured I’d just ride between them and continue on my merry way.

But the two to my right decided to run parallel to me, their hooves scrabbling along the pavement, and again I wondered if I’d meet my end, a block from home, under the bloody hooves of a pair of terrified deer.

They, however, proved to be a little quicker than I, and before long they pulled ahead, crossed over and again disappeared into the night.

But I’m still a little worried I’d end up on the wrong end of a bike-deer accident some night, and I wouldn’t be too happy about it.

It’s one thing to show off the scars from your bear mauling, or to regale the kiddies with the story of how you fought off one of the dozens of cougars that don’t live in this state.

But to be torn asunder by Bambi? I’ll pass.