I hate hunting season (there, I said it).

Hunting season is winding down in the Walla Walla Valley, and can I just put this out there?  YAY!  First, just let me say before there is any confusion, animosity, or accusations of hypocrisy--I don't judge you for hunting.  I don't have any problem with you turning a day out in our beautiful country into a meal on your plate.   I don't even dislike you for posting photos of dead things on my FB feed.   I am an over sharer, I post many things on my FB page I am sure many of you do not want to see or read.  I figure that being on FB at all means that you have given your unwritten consent to, at any point, be visually or verbally assaulted as you scroll.  So, this rant...this rant, isn't about you.  It's about me.   

I hate hunting season.  I hate smiling, nodding and engaging in polite conversation all centered around your thrill of the kill, when inside I know that had I been there I would have yelled "run Bambi! run!" while not so secretly rejoicing in the fact that Bambi might go on living another hour or another day at the expense of your human family going hungry.  I'm not proud, I'm just honest.  

I hate that when I lived on the farm,  large, grown men in camouflage sporting size-appropriate weapons sparkling menacingly in the slight shimmer of dawn, would knock on my door at 5AM after my husband had left for work and ask me (after passing 15 "no hunting" and as many "no trespassing signs") if he promised not to shoot me, if he could ignore all those signs and just hunt my property anyway,  oblivious to the hungry cries of the prematurely awoken infant coming from the other room.  

I hate hunting season.  I hate after turning on Facebook (which admittedly happens too often), oggling a sweet newborn baby, rejoicing in someone's happy news, laughing at a Michelle Connerism, taking a wistful journey through someone else's travel photos, that I scroll just a little further and then there it is!  Death.  A sweet, sad Bambi face gazing mournfully through my computer screen.  I can avoid it, sure.  I can take a hiatus from FB and pretend.  Part of me, I suppose, is a glutton for punishment.  

It's not just the photos though, we live in an area where it's the norm to decorate with dead things.  Friends, family, people I love.  I don't judge.  When I sit down at your table and you serve me the beautiful fleshy fruit of your hunt and then mount it's head on your wall to watch me eat it, it won't be me that's doing the judging.  I become the judged.  This makes me uncomfortable.  I will however 'bottoms up' whatever is in my glass (hopefully booze), enjoy my meal, and then whisper a silent 'thank you' and 'I'm sorry' to those eyes who hold the judgement.  You see, I don't like to see dead things in pictures or on walls, but I DO like to see dead things on my plate after the faces have been removed.  

Thankfully, after nearly 16 years of marriage, my husband has begun to learn what does it for me and what doesn't.  He's getting there after many, many failed learning opportunities such as; taking me on dates to animal morgues (some call wildlife museums or Cabellas), mounting a dead bird on my wall the very same day I called him in tears after unintentionally butchering a small flock of little sparrow like daredevils with my car,  storing undisguised calf testicles still encased in their veiny, hairy sack...in a jar...of blood...in my fridge,  and my very favorite, teaching his youngest spawn to question me every time I have meat on my plate..."Mom, is that a pig you're eating?"  "What part of the body is the T-bone?"  "Why is this called a rump?"  "What part of the sweet little baby lamb is that?"  "This oyster is still alive!?" "Is this the EASTER BUNNY?"....sigh.  "It's meat, Caimbry!  It's just meat.  Leave me alone".   

So, like I said.  It's not about you.  It's about me.   I don't judge, but I do hate hunting season.  (For the sake of full disclosure, I WILL judge you for waking sleeping babies.   I judge you less now because my babies are grown, but still.  Really?)