Women Make Men Stupid
This is a typical whitetail buck. You can see how
he is clearly trying to look cool for the ladies.
We live way out in the middle of no place. The fact that I sort of shoot guns for a living makes that pertinent. One of the fringe benefits is copious wildlife.
Some of that is not so cool. I wage an ongoing war of extermination against the water moccasins that breed like venomous scaly bunnies in the lake that passes for our backyard. I’m barely holding my own on that front. The deer, however, are kind of neat.
My wife hates them because they eat her flowers. I think of our local deer herd as handy shelf-stable protein should Putin follow through on his oft-repeated threat to nuke the planet. For now, however, they’re a bit like pets.
I can identify many of the locals. One doe is missing half of her left ear, no doubt secondary to some unfortunate encounter with a dog in her wayward youth. She birthed twins last year, both of which are little button bucks today. The females tend to be homebodies, while the bucks always wander.
One afternoon I glanced out my bathroom window to see an enormous 10-point who was obviously enraptured with a small, young doe. She was, for her part, having none of it. He chased her around like an idiot trying to look cool while she trotted hither and yon in search of a safe space. I called my wife’s attention to the apparent age discrepancy, and she declared that he was “The Harvey Weinstein of deer.”
Anyway, the point is that women reliably disengage a man’s higher-order brain functions. Anyone who feels otherwise has clearly never met an actual human. Guys who might be respected political leaders or captains of industry can be rendered intellectually incompetent by a strategic glance from an attractive woman. It’s really a bit like a superpower.
This is a typical whitetail doe. She clearly wants nothing to do with guys.
It's Timeless, It’s Irresistible, and It’s Everywhere…
I sat huddled comfortably at the base of a big elm tree alongside my dad. I was tucked down behind the portable blind my mom had sewed for us out of sharpened dowels and camouflage cloth. My skinny teenaged mitts gripped my Browning Auto-5 12-gauge in a death rictus while my trigger finger hovered over the safety. Above 60 yards distant, a big turkey gobbler slowly ambled our way.
My dad is a master at this. He had been tormenting this poor guy for half an hour, yelping a few hen calls while interspersing the occasional gobble. In his capable hands, a Lynch’s box call conjured a sort of irresistible jealousy in the randy bird. This gobbler heard girls whooping it up with some other guy, and he was on the prowl for a hot date.
Dad waited until the moment was perfect and popped out a quick yelp. This was more than the big guy could stand. He broke into a trot headed our way with love on his mind. Dad tapped me on the thigh. It was time.
I let the beast get within about 25 yards before I pivoted up onto my knees and raised the 32-inch barrel of my shotgun above the edge of the blind. For a pregnant moment, our eyes met. Up close, wild turkeys are incredibly ugly. The look on his face said, “Oh, crap.” The look on mine said, “You’re dinner.”
And indeed, he was. I don’t recall if this particular bird was served on Thanksgiving, Easter or Christmas. However, after my mom had her way with him in the kitchen, he was some epically good eating. It was always a bit of a competition among us three brothers to see who would be the first to find a piece of lead shot in our meal. All three of us turned out pretty well. Imagine what we might have accomplished had it not been for all that childhood lead exposure.
Wild turkeys are just crazy ugly. However, you haven’t lived
until you have had one properly prepared for holiday dinner.
Stupid on a Whole New Level
We’ve not even begun to discuss the simply breathtaking antics of the human male. These same primal drives that bought my turkey buddy a face full of #4 shot have caused men to break bones, abdicate thrones, and, in extreme cases, suffer violent, gory death. John Hinkley shot President Reagan in a doomed effort to impress Jodie Foster, an actress he had never met.
The real shame of it is, as near as I can tell, women really don’t care. Like that harried doe outside my bathroom window, for the most part, they just cannot be bothered with our foolishness. I have chased my wife for 40 years, and I still don’t have a clue. Perhaps someday I’ll figure out how to impress girls, or like all those other guys, I’ll just die trying …
