I once calculated how many days, nights, weeks I spend without my husband. I arrived at four months. Four months out of each year, I am on my own.
That’s four months of taking out my own garbage. Killing my own bugs. Sometimes even pumping my own gas. I have all of the obligations of marriage without any of the benefits.
Why get married, if not to hand those chores over to someone else? It’s not like I wasn’t already getting the milk. Now I do all the chores without any milk at all.
Today, in fact, I have to venture into the garage because the trash needs to go out for tomorrow’s trash pickup. The garage, known host to mice, skinks, and snakes. And the trash, icky and difficult for a germophobe like me.
I will grant you that much of Don’s absence is due to his work schedule, which requires twenty-four shifts most weeks. I’m pretty much a gold digger, so I have to be supportive when it comes to Don’s work schedule.
But the rest of Don’s absence is hunting-related, making me a hunting widow.
Now, you’re probably thinking that surely I’m not the only hunting widow – or widower – out there. You’d be right. But my widowhood is a bit sadder because my wedding anniversary coincides with prime deer hunting.
If you fall on my side of the universe, meaning your meat comes from a supermarket and you’ve never hiked through the woods at four in the morning, then we need to talk about the rut.
The rut is when mommy and daddy deer make little baby deer. The rut is the best time to hunt. Most deer hunting is carried out on male deer. During the rut, male deer have a singular focus.
Parcheesi. My version of Parcheesi.
This makes them, well, a little stupid. Hunters use this to their advantage.
I know if you’re not into hunting at all, or maybe even against hunting, this sounds pretty awful. Even Willie, who adores Don, struggles with this imagery.
Until I married a hunter, I was against hunting. I used to leave voicemails for my cat when I was on vacation. I patiently explained to my guinea pig that he wasn’t allowed to poop on my floor if I let him run around. I once told the crayfish he couldn’t escape from his tank to eat the cat’s food because he scares Mommy when he does that.
My animals are people.
But here are a few things to consider. Hunting only takes place at certain times of the year, and certain times of the day. Hence the ridiculous four in the morning trek through the woods.
And you can’t go after any old buck. You have to count their antlers. Then they need to stand still, and do so in the right position.
It’s like seeing a hot guy at the bar. You can’t just go talk to him. You have to wait for him to catch your eye. Then wait for him to come over. And you know how sometimes that guy will start talking and you’ll think, “this dude will never understand my love for Benedict Cumberbatch” and you realize it’s all over? Well, the same thing happens in hunting.
So the Quality Deer Management Association – which sounds made up but is in fact a real thing – said only 41% of hunters were successful in 2017.
I’m not trying to change your mind. Just asking you to think on it. With lots of love.
Anyway, every November I should be, well, enjoying a rut in honor of my union. But because America’s deer like to spend my anniversary the same way, they win.
Perhaps the cruelest reminder was this article from MeatEater that appeared in my inbox just ahead of last year’s rut. A survey of deer hunters found that, yep, the best day of the rut was my exact anniversary date.
Now, I know you want to say I’m venerable. But there are two things I need to tell you. First, Don and I do not celebrate our anniversary. We usually forget all about it. In addition to the rut, our anniversary also happens to fall around the Marine Corps’ birthday. This takes priority in my house. I talked my Marine Corps dad down from playing the Marine Corps’ Hymn when he walked me down the aisle. But I did consider letting it ride.
Second, I am an introvert. That means I like my alone time. One of the hardest things for me to reconcile was the conversation Don and I had when we returned from our honeymoon. We had agreed he would move into my apartment after our wedding. But I never thought he’d, you know, actually live there.
As we settled down to dinner, our suitcases waiting to be unpacked, I asked Don what nights that week he’d be with me, and what nights he’d go sleep at his place.
Don stared at me. I stared back. “What?” I asked.
“Um, THIS is my place,” he said. “I live here now.”
And that was just not cool.
So those four months out of each year that I raise the kids alone, and don’t have anyone to play Parcheesi with, and have to get my own newspaper from the cold driveway, are also four months I don’t have to pretend that I enjoy sitting out on the deck while we read.
I can sleep with all the lights on, which everyone knows protects you from things that go bump in the night, but which Don stubbornly refuses to acknowledge.
I can watch The Meg on Prime without Don injecting rational thought. I’m staring at Jason Statham’s abs. I passed rational thought by the time I hit his pecs.
I can treat myself to a Starbucks because, hey, I had to scrape the ice from my car and aren’t I pretty enough that someone else should be doing that for me?
So it’s really fine that Don would rather hang with rutting deer than a wife willing to rut. He recharges watching big bucks. I recharge watching big sharks. Everyone is happy.
And in case you’re connecting the dots, and now know exactly when I’m alone, I have to caution you. First, I have no shortage of um, milkmen offering me the milk my husband’s absence denies. I’m not into drinking said milk, but who knows? We all make mistakes sometimes.
And I have a dog who responds aggressively to all intruders except my super-hot appliance repairman. Pete loves him, and I really can’t argue.
But the more realistic situation is that I won’t be home at all. Sometimes I go to The Cabin. Sometimes I hang with Don’s mom. She spends every November bemoaning her son’s atrocious treatment of me. Leaving me alone for days, weeks at a time. And on our anniversary!
She bundles up me, Pete, and the kids. Schleps us to her house. Makes us dinner. Pours me wine. We watch movies. I sleep like the dead.
That’s almost as good as milk, or a solid round of Parcheesi.
Almost.
