I have some grievances to air about Montana's hunting season which I must release to this journal for my own sense of sanity, and then I will be done. This portion of the story was initially to consider the beauty of Montana animals and all we have to learn from them, about life and death and loving in totality. But now, seized by the prospect of having a forum that only I have the password to, I will step on my proverbial soapbox and let this rip.
The men of Montana do not want to be home. The men of Montana want to be outside. I appreciate this about them, as they have found the perfect place in live their lives in, but the redundant obsession in which they do it, creates a tipping of the scales that throws the entire ecosystem of Montana marriages and relationships well out of orbit.
As we have established, the men want to be outside, not inside. They are so passionate about this, that they have involved the government in aiding them with creating a season for every day for every animal that will allow them to be outside for the rest of their lives should they so choose. They claim they do not want to be away from their wives and children during this time, a moral impertive they must clarify lest public shunning.
The women of Montana at first, find this romantic, with their men providing meat for the family. Most Montanan’s hunt so that they may fill a freezer, and for this, I am sympathetic and say "Go. Hunt." However, when you have a man who raises cattle for a living, this argument becomes void of any logic, but! a weekend away is certainly still deserved. Plus there is quiet at the house, and I, the proverbial Montana Woman, can spend some one on one time with the children, or dogs, or both or neither. While he is gone, things are fine, although I sleep poorly as I am afraid that a bear may enter the house, and the dogs sense my fear and bark at everything around them, causing me to think it’s a bear, and the perpetuating cycle of paralyzing fear sustains. I am cusping a nervous break down upon the Montana Man's return.
Now it is time for me to taste what my Montana Man has dragged home, which is inevitably a male animal of some sort, the only thing impressive enough to hang. The animal is rife with testosterone, age, and adrenaline and needs to be beaten with a bat or coated in vats of butter to render palatable. It will take a specific set of skills to salvage meat in this condition, likely only the kind a woman has. It is a rigorous and grim affair, but with love and affection, it can be done.
Sometimes, though, the animal doesn’t come home. It lumbers off into the woods, where sometimes it forgets about the bullet or the arrow that has gone through it and just keeps on living, virtually unscathed. Other times, the animal goes to lay down, and ends up dead in a river and floats away, where another husband will see it, cleave its head off, cover it with a tarp in the back of his truck, and drive it across state lines to commit a federal offense. He will then mount it in his home for decoration and to keep the memory and respect for the sport alive.
Another thing that happens is the hind quarters of the animal will be left outside where two dogs find them, devour them in shameful secrecy, likely with their eyes darting from side to side while they kick back chunks of bloody meat to their molars before chewing twice and swallowing whole. They will then proceed to shit themselves on every surface and texture the house offers for the remainder of the night while the Montana Man has ingested 3 times the appropriate dosage of Nyquil sleep aid to fight off a sinus infection, and you are not sure whether you need to plan the dog's funeral or end its suffering yourself. The dogs fill the house with a miasma of toxic farts until it has an atomic charge and every living thing in it becomes sterile.
If you are lucky, though, the only symptom of the Montana Man’s hunting addiction will be an entire garage that looks like a bomb has detonated into. No cars may enter this garage, even though the Montana Man lives in a place it snows for three quarters of the year. He will instead get up an hour early every morning so that he may run his diesel truck to warm up the cab, and defrost the windshield, probably costing him at least two hundred dollars just in heating costs each season. We will not calculate the opportunity cost of sleep. What thousands of dollars of hunting apparel doesn’t fit in the Normandy Beach garage, spills over into a new, satellite territory, including the kitchen counters and the dining room table. These are the only two places the woman cares about in all of the house.
All in all, Montana Women should consider temporary relocation to another state during their husband or partner's hunting season of choice, which is what I have so brilliantly done. These women, bound by the common identity of abandonment, will instead fill the gnawing void with peace and the healing powers of the sun, that holds the space and offers the reprieve they so desperately crave during the cold months, all alone except for the bears. The Montana Man will also feel relieved, not having to feign the performance art of choice - of time at home with the inconvenient family situation he has created vs. hunting an animal to hang with the others that look just like it.
Any and all women who feel personally victimized by hunting season are invited to my parents house in California, or to contribute to a mutual fund and scholarship I have created to rent a communal home in either Palm Springs or Miami Beach. Contribution alocations will determine voting power of the decided location.
I will now return to my initial programming, about the rest of animals not victimized by hunting season.