Why I Don't Hunt

I don’t hunt. Now, I’m no animal rights activist, though I don’t believe in being cruel to animals--including ex-spouses, so my reasons for not hunting don’t stem from what some might call moral or ethical reasons. No, my decision not to be a hunter is less complex than that.

First and foremost, I have too many enemies (I don’t hate my enemies; after all, I created them) that are expert hunters. I can hear one of them now saying to the authorities, “Gee, Officer, I don’t why he was wearing that brown furry coat and wearing antlers on his head.”

Plus, there are too many crazy people out there who shouldn’t be trusted with a gun. I know, I’m one of them. Those who have taken me on the few hunting trips I’ve participated in are aware of this fact too. I remember one such trip with my grandparents when I was 15 years old.

I was sitting in the back seat of the car, directly behind Gramps who had the unfortunate task of driving us out to his coveted duck blinds. Don’t ask me why, but for some illogical reason, I thought of a prank (which at the time seemed funny) I could pull on Grandpa.

We were traveling down the interstate at about 70 miles per hour when I grabbed a pillow and, in a flash, put it over my grandpa’s head, completely covering his face and greatly restricting his air intake.

Talk about panic. If you were to look up the word “panic” in the dictionary you’d see a picture of my grandfather behind the steering wheel of his car, arms flung out, grabbing air, with a pillow pulled tightly against his face.

I’ve never seen a person sweat so much in such a relatively short period of time. I mean to tell you, after he somehow maneuvered the car to the side of the road, shakily climbed out of it, and regained control of his now spasmodic body, we noticed a good sized puddle of moisture where he had just been sitting. Now, would you put a loaded gun in the hands of someone who would pull such a prank? I didn't think so.

That was just the beginning of a most memorable trip. It seems that in the excitement of being invited along for the hunt, I forgot to put water in the leaky radiator of Grandpa’s car and, of course, our vehicle broke down—but not until we were miles off the main road.

A couple of hours passed, when at last, an older couple in a truck rambled by and stopped to offer assistance.

Between both of our parties nobody had a thing to tow us with. So we all scrounged around until someone found an old inner tube, from a tractor tire, hidden in the weeds of a nearby field.

What a carnival ride! The amusements parks around the world should have such a ride. After we tied both ends of the tube to our vehicles, our new friends proceeded to pull us to the nearest gas station.

As the old gentleman and his wife slowly began driving forward, we could see that old tube begin to stretch further and further until all of a sudden—whoosh!—like a rubber band stretched to its limit and then let go of, we were pulled at neck-break speed directly toward the rear bumper of the old couple’s truck.

Up to that point in my life, I’d dreamed of becoming an astronaut, but after being thrown back into the trunk of our car by the “G” force from our takeoff, I decided I was better suited for a slower paced job (perhaps something in the field of science—like observing the mating rituals of the snail).

“We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die!” Grandma screamed over the horrid screech which enveloped the car, that is, it enveloped the car until Gramps reached back and slapped me silly in an effort to help me regain my senses and quiet down.

Gramps yelled, “Hang on!” And our eyes widened to the size of silver dollars as we smacked the rear bumper of the truck towing us.

Well, that momentarily stopped our car…and lulled us into a false sense of security. No sooner had we gathered our wits when our towing friends moved forward and the whole thing started over again.

It was 40 miles to the nearest help, and you can well imagine the looks we received from the two “good ol’ boys” leaning back in a couple of chairs against the gas station wall, whittling on a couple of sticks, when all of a sudden they heard vaaaroooom-smack, vaaaroooom-smack as we were being towed down the road toward them.

It took us a good two and a half hours to cover those 40 miles, and all the Dramamine in the world wouldn’t have prevented the awful stomach wrenching which took place after crawling out of our car at the gas station.

Recovering from falling over each other with laughter, the two guys, sitting in the chairs, took one look at us, sobered up some, and said, “You folks is a lookin’ like you seen the inside of a sausage grinder.” I guess they noticed our bluish-green complexions.

“Thanks,” I said between convulsions, “after what we’d been through, I’ll take that as a compliment.

I don’t know, but I think that particular hunting trip did more to Gramps than just make him nauseas. You see, after that outing, when I’d mention something to him about taking me on another trip, he’d act like I wasn’t even there and mumble something about remembering to pick up new hearing aid batteries the next time he went to the drug store. Heck, I didn’t even know he wore hearing aids.