"I'm a Hunter!"

In case you live in a hole, or have been out of the country for the last month, let me bring you up to speed. It was "Deer Huntin'" season in Utah!

I myself was actually a former hunter in another life, before I got too busy with work and school. But I plan to return at some point... Maybe.

When you are on the outside looking in, this whole fiasco looks quite a bit different. The hunt loses a lot of its glamor once you haven't participated in a while. For instance. I always loved the thrill of the hunt. Which in my case meant driving around for hours on end, or sitting at the edge of a field in sub-zero temps waiting for even a glimpse of a raggedy 2-point that weighed as much a large dog. Really the only thrill was the 4 seconds of intervening time between when I first saw the 2-point and when I shot the two point. But it always seemed worth it.

Now however, when I think of this same scenario, I not only have to take into account all the waiting, driving, soda, BS and the final culmination of the kill, but also the gutting, skinning, butchering, and then eating of this meat that is basically sage-brush flavored and dry as a bone. Is any of this sounding familiar?

So, I guess you can see why I put a maybe on my plans to start hunting again.

I have also noticed another phenomenon that I never caught onto, even when I was a might hunter myself. This would be the tradition of wearing your hunting clothes during the week leading up to the actual hunt.

It was like Tuesday or Wednesday of the opening weekend and I started noticing everybody with the 4-wheelers already packed up, towing their tent trailers around and inexplicably wearing their hunter-orange. I can only assume that all of this was to broadcast to the world "I am a Hunter!" What other explanation could there be? I mean, do football players wear their pads and helmet for days, leading up to a game? Do rock climbers walk around wearing their harness with a rope slung over their shoulder? "What's up dude, I'm going climbing in a few days". And yet, hunters find in necessary to dawn their hideous orange sweaters, their dorky hunting caps with the ear flaps and their giant blood-smeared boots. So here's to you, super excited hunter-man. It looks like your going hunting? Good luck, in 4 days!.

(There is one guy I want to exclude from my mockery. That is the guy wearing the full coverall suit of orange. This guy does not have time to decide between a vest, a coat, a hat, etc. "To heck with it" he says, "I am here to kill dear, not look good"... You wear that bad-boy all year if you need to buddy. I think there are few (too few?) people, even among the hardest of the hard-core hunters, that are willing to step into a pair of blaze orange coveralls, zip it up, and head out the door into public view.)

The 90's Called

The other day I was sitting at home and I got the most random phone call… It was “1995” calling, and they wanted their check-books back.? Well, I thanked them for their time but explained that I had stopped making purchases with checks during the Clinton Administration.

It was fitting that I would get such a phone call, because earlier that week I had been rushing to leave town and got stuck behind a lady who apparently didn’t know the rest of us had stopped using checks at the store 13 years ago.

I have to admit that these occurrences are becoming increasingly rare. But regardless of happening less often, they are still equally painful. Let me walk you thought the scenario:

You line up behind a woman at the supermarket. (almost inevitably in her late 40’s to early 50’s) As her items are being scanned she watches patiently, making sure that all prices reflect the coupons she has provided the 16 year-old manning the register. When the total is tallied and the payment requested, she reaches into her purse for what you hope is a card of some sort… Anything made of plastic.

There is a tense moment and then the ultimate let down as you see her retrieve the dreaded check-book. Aaawwwee! An audible grown goes up from the entire line, (not to mention the cashier) as they all know what is coming next.

She takes out the book and gingerly places the carbon copy page between the first and next check. She carefully inspects the total and starts to write it out, “Sixty – five - dollars – and - forty seven/one hundredths.” Then she writes the numbers out, dates the check, signs it, (but not before noting in the lower left corner what the check was for “G-r-o-c-e-r-i-e-s”. Then she begins the tedious process of ripping the check from the check-book. If successful in this, she must then write her home phone number and driver’s her license number down on the top of the check, so they can track her if she is a fraud. Finally, if all has gone according to plan (average time 4 min, 30 seconds), she turns to the back pages and subtracts the newly spent amount from the total balance still left in the account.

By the time this is all done, half her groceries are rotten. (All of my groceries are rotten). The cashier is exhausted and the store is closing. Luckily, I step up and am able to pay for my g-r-o-c-e-r-i-e-s is 2.7 seconds, leave the store and check my balance online when get home (average time, 34 seconds).

Live in the now people!

I Almost Died - Again!

Today, like most other days, I was driving down the road minding my own business, when I noticed a white truck up ahead waiting to pull out. I didn't give it anymore thought until I was ten feet away, when suddenly it started easing out into traffic. I don't really believe in horn-honking, so I just slammed my breaks and got behind the person. As we drove on, I notice that their blinker and their wipers were turning on and off, and that they were swerving back and forth. I decided the person must be high or drunk so I pulled up along side, to get a better look, thinking I might need to call the police. Well, it turns out that the driver was not drunk or high, he was just old.

Now, I understand that this post might be offensive to some people, and that this might be a touchy subject. But frankly, so is dying in a fiery auto accident. (At least for me) I would not even approach this subject if, as the title suggests, it wasn't happening all the time.

At this point I am starting to believe there must be some sort of Gov. cover-up or something, because I seem to be the only person that considers this a problem in our society. And because I am the only one who ever complains about it, I am forced to choose between two unthinkable conclusions.

Scenario #1 - Even though everybody has frequent near-death experiences courtesy of age-ed drivers, the government is working to suppress this information... But why?!?

Scenario #2(I think this one in the most likely) - The elderly have banded together and are deliberately and systematically targeting me, and only me, with these slow moving attempts on my life. Again I ask, "Why?"

I guess the reasons why are essentially irrelevant. What is important is that it is happening people! Fortunately, I am like the one-eyed man in the land of the blind. Try as they might, I always see them coming. "Missed me again grandpa!!!" I yell, shaking my fist out an opened window, as I narrowly escape with my life.

I am writing this as a sort of final will and testament, you know, if something were to happen to me. In the mean time, I am asking for your help. Your silence can't save you. This is not a problem that is going away. Think of your children man! YOUR CHILDREN!!! What will their future be like? Some day the very old will rule this country. And in that day, you will have to look back and say "if only we had listened to Shea". (Rhyming not intended).