"You need to quit airing our dirty laundry on FaceBook," my husband complained to me about a month ago.
I screw my forehead in confusion, "Huh? I don't air our dirty laundry on FaceBook, Birdy."
"Yeah, well, ______ called me at work yesterday and said I can't get out of bed Monday through Friday without hitting the snooze 3x, but on Saturday, I wake up BEFORE the alarm. Really, you need to quit putting OUR business on FaceBook."
It's not OUR business, and it was funny.
Therefore, as opposed to making a FaceBook post, I decided to blog about him...
My husband is the biggest adventure I have embarked upon, outside of giving birth and attempting to raise well-balanced, well-adjusted, productive members of society.
Birdy is content to wear t-shirts to work, holes and all. If I purchase something at a garage sale, he's happy to wear it; however, when it comes to hunting, NOTHING but the best will do. He has one pair of sneakers, one pair of dress shoes, one pair of casual dress shoes, a pair of cowboy boots, work boots, and one pair of "run-out-to the kennel" shoes. I could go on all day long about how many different pairs of shoes he has for hunting. Or boots. Or hip waders, or chest waders, or scent-lock, or camo jeans, or sweatshirts, or duck hunting pull-overs, or down jackets, or hunting bibs (which differ greatly from hip waders or chest waders). Or, how many pairs of long johns he has. Or hunting socks. He has more hunting socks than I have everyday socks. Then there is the scent-free toiletries, not to mention how many firearms he owns (we won't delve too deeply, as we don't want to alert ATF), or bows for that matter. I mean, physically, you can only hunt with one bow at a time. Or should we discuss how many tree stands lay in and around our yard, basement, patio...but currently, out patio is being occupied by goose decoys.
Like 50 of them.
When we lived in town, he hollered up the basement steps and asked me, "Where are my _____ shoes?" The blank is not a description of said shoes, but a colorful adjective...
"In the basement."
"All my stuff's in the basement, why are all my things in the basement and YOUR stuff is upstairs? Why aren't your shoes in the basement?"
"You have so much SHIT, there's not enough room for all of it up here, so in order to keep it CONTAINTED, I decided to put it all in the basement. Altogether. Let's face it, you come with more freakin' accessories than BARBIE. That bitch is jealous of you..."
Most of that still holds true here at the new house. Even the accessories.
I am a creature of habit, but decided to go ahead and let him keep some of his hunting stuff in the upstairs closet. Because he is taller, we hung his stuff on the top rack in the closet. I'm not sure why, since he can get everything he needs down, put cannot put anything back up there. NOTHING. I am forever dragging the stool out, scaling it, and hanging his Barbie crap back up for him. To keep it altogether. To get it out of my HAIR.
I've complained long and loud about how much of a mess my husband is in the mornings, but on hunting mornings, he is especially challenged...
...I am married to a man who took me turkey hunting in the canyons just east of the Mississippi River. In the driving rain. Up a mountainside with low-hanging branches on trees that didn't produce leaves, but long, vicious stickers. Like trees covered with needles. Over an electric fence that would put a steer on its knees...I'm stumbling over tree roots, going uphill, loaded down like a pack mule, carrying a firearm in one hand, having left one hand free to carry a flashlight. Which I promptly turned on...
"SHUT THAT THING OFF!!!!!!"
Huh? Are you kidding?
"SHUT IT OFF, NOW!!!!!" he whisper-screams. Yes, it's possible. Go hunting with the man, you'll witness it.
We don't call it Birdy BootCamp for nothing...the man is focused.
There's a fine line between hobby and mental illness.
One of us crossed that line many, many mooooons ago...
"But, I can't see, Birdy."
"You'll do fine! We don't want the turkeys to see it."
It's 0400 in the driving rain, I'm pretty sure they're smarter than us and they're still sleeping...
Who's the turkey here, bud?
So, although I was terrified to put an eye out on a needle-tree, I clicked off the flashlight. Mr. Sure-footed led us directly to the tent, whereupon I promptly laid down in my rain gear and fell asleep til the sun came over the horizon.
Hunting Barbie behaves far differently in his own bedroom.
This past Saturday was my first day off in two weeks. I have been busier than a one-armed paper-hanger with hives lately. Last Friday night I made a request, "Look, I'm beat, will you please not wake me up in the morning?" Hunting Barbie has latched onto something to hunt this late in the season.
SNOW GEESE.
Do I care?
Nope.
I get enough goose season, duck season, turkey season, teal season, dove season, shotgun season, bow season, crappie season, blue gill season, bass season, mushroom season to last me a lifetime. I DON'T GIVE A FREE-FLYING ____ about snow geese.
Honestly. Don't care.
Don't wake me up.
"Get the dog out of the bedroom. She'll start pivoting like a ballerina the minute YOU wake her up & drive me nuts till I get up and feed her."
So, at 0425, his alarm goes off and he hits the snooze button. Thanks. At 0426 the alarm goes off again. He gets out of the bed, walks directly into the wall, clearing a shelf, breaking a picture frame, and knocking a shadow box and it's contents onto the floor.
Who put that wall there????
I do believe Hunting Barbie put that wall there. I seem to recall Hunting Barbie moonlighted as Carpenter Barbie for nearly a year, and built us a beautiful home.
Needless to say, he needs assistance cleaning up...so much for sleeping in...
This season has been better than most. Normally, he hits the overhead light because he cannot locate his chest of drawers in the dark. Nevermind that his socks have been in the same dresser, in the drawer, in the same corner of the same room since we moved in...
Heaven forbid, he lay his socks out the night before in the closet...or the garage...or his truck...or the neighbor's house.
Just throwing that out there.
So, on Saturday night, we have our little fundraiser here locally for the youth baseball program, whereupon, on our way home at midnight, Birdy announces he is going snow goose hunting the next morning.
Are you kidding??? Come onnnnnn, man.
On our way home, we have a little conversation about someone's inability to get around our bedroom in the dark. "Birdy, you've lived there six years. You CANNOT navigate that bedroom in the dark. Why not?"
"I dunno," he giggles, "I guess I'm handicapped."
"You're navigationally challenged in your own bedroom, honey."
And
---WAIT FOR IT----
He agreed.
Of course, Sunday morning his alarm goes off. Being so used to setting the snooze, Birdy assumes he shut the alarm off and heads to the bathroom. "Did you shut it off?" I ask as he stumbles out of bed.
"Yes, I shut it OFF!" he snarled at me.
Seriously.
Oh, no he didn't.
He hit he The Snooze.
Being unfamiliar with his alarm clock, I had to pop the battery door off, and dump the batteries on the floor to make it stop.
Thankfully, I rolled over & went back to sleep.
Monday morning rolls around...Birdy's alarm goes off, he hits the snooze. It goes off again. He gets up. I relish the fact that I don't have a busy day and leisurely roll about the bed half-awake, stretching like a well-rested cat, when I hear my husband say something I cannot repeat, and
CRASH!!!
to the floor goes a picture frame.
The man bounced off my an antique rolltop desk that belonged to my grandfather when he was a child. The desk hit the wall and blew a picture off the wall.
GOOD MONDAY MORNING...
Last night I couldn't sleep. So, I took an actual whole half milligram of my sleep aid. Wow. I talked to my physician's office today about changing that script around to something that I know works and they treated me like a junkie. I'll be finding another doctor shortly. But that's really not what this blog is about.
It's about my bull-in-a-china-shop navigationally challenged 40 year-old husband...
He had the day off and VOILA! heads directly to the goose pit to hunt those stupid snow geese that don't have the sense God gave a gnat to FLY NORTH already!
I didn't think anything of it. He gets up, makes enough noise to wake the dead on the other side of the planet, I get up. If I don't get up, you know, after alllll, it IS Thursday, Birdy'll wake me.
Uh, no.
I woke me at 0615...I texted him & asked why he didn't wake me.
His response?
"I was afraid to..."
Seriously, what makes today ANY different???
