on safari
My Mom just called on her way to the airport to pick up my Dad from the “Big Macho Breeder Huntin’ & Gruntin’ Safari.” Well, that’s what I call it anyway. (My Dad likes to do stuff with his “boys” which is pretty cool, I suppose. But me and the other queer son are fortunately not invited on the uber macho trips he takes with the other two. And for the record, Dad has done just fine by me: London, Ireland, rafting in Grand Canyon…so bitterness is not the purpose of this story…)
Anyway, Mom was very disappointed about how Chip, the Elder, was the only one who had killed a deer. Seems it was some kinda special doe, a deer, a female deer. Something with spots on it. Well, she, Mom, not the deer, was just “tickeled” (her word – she’s from Oklahoma) about the rest of the story and couldn’t wait to tell me… Turns out it was going to cost $140 to ship the meat home which they thought was ridiculous! So they decided to leave it (!) and just take the hide that will make for a beautiful throw pillow or some such… But, the good news is, since they didn’t get to kill anything else, they each were going to get $1000 back from the cost of the “hunt”, a surprisingly grandiose word, in my opinion, to describe three grown men, armed to the teeth, slouching around a fenced-in bit of forest stocked with unarmed woodland creatures to shoot at.
“Seems to me,” I say, “that if they got such a discount they could afford to ship home the meat!”
At this point Mom begins to see that I am probably not “tickled” and she begins to become incensed as well because she likes venison and won’t have any back strap for chicken fried steak like she had hoped for. I wondered if they had perhaps thought in advance about what they planned to do with any such meat they might get from the animals they hoped to kill.
Mom said, “Yeah, and how much was it going to cost to ship home those antlers they were gunning for!?!” As if that isn’t fucked up too!
But then she had to tell me just one more hilarious story about Kelly, the Younger, killing two wild turkeys. Two! “You are not going to believe what he did! That rascal!! He put the two turkey breasts in his suitcase and checked it on the plane! That way it doesn’t cost anything!” she says.
“Doesn’t he think it’s going to spoil before he gets it home?” I say.
“Oh I’m sure it will spoil,” she says. “But you know how that Kelly is!” Isn’t that hilarious?
I’ve told her I don’t ever want to hear another word about hunting or fishing from that part of the klan. Ever.
Where did I come from?
