So it came to be, last weekend, that I was heading to the back door of the garage when I noticed the hole.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Not \u201ca hole\u201d. The<\/em> hole.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nMaybe he thought if he drilled the door full of arrow holes he wouldn\u2019t have to clean or paint it?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
<\/p>\n
The source of the hole was easy enough to deduce. I live with a bowhunter. I also live with two fledgling bow hunters.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wait. Would they be fletching bow hunters?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a little hunting humor for you there.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Anyway. The hole.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I live with a bevy of bowhunters. One of them was practicing his skills this weekend. We live on 0.3 acres of land. That means that practicing bowhunting cannot take place in an east-west direction. To do so would risk loosing – yes loosing, not losing – an arrow directly into a neighbor\u2019s yard.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Likewise, arrows cannot be shot in a northerly direction. I don\u2019t even know those neighbors. I\u2019d like to keep it that way.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This leaves one direction. Southerly, toward our house.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And if one were to let arrows fly toward their home, one would want to be sure they were doing so in the vicinity of the garage, rather than the house. The better to not injure any humans or dogs.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Yes, I\u2019m talking about Don. And don\u2019t be impressed that I know the acreage of our property or the direction in which it lies. I had to look up the acreage, and I had to use the navigation in our 4Runner to determine which direction is south.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So the hole in the garage door is from an arrow that Don shot into it while practicing bowhunting. I asked him about it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He denied it. At first. Then he pointed out that I had a freezer full of game meat, implying a level of bowhunting prowess for which I should be grateful.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I had to point out that I never asked for a freezer full of game meat. Which brings us to our next argument.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We have a large chest freezer in our garage. Its sole purpose is to store game meat. For more than a decade, I have carried the often verbalized hope that I could have a corner of that freezer for frozen waffles and my lava cakes. But Don is like a skittish boyfriend, asked by his new squeeze if she can keep a toothbrush at his place. There\u2019s no room. Can\u2019t my stuff go somewhere else?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Well, sure. I have the kitchen freezer. But that doesn\u2019t hold more than a few days\u2019 each of toaster pancakes, normal people meat, and such. Which is why I\u2019ve always longed for space in the chest freezer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Don will share a bathroom and DNA with me, but not the chest freezer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the fall, an opportunity presented itself. Don had planned an elk hunting trip in Idaho. If he was successful, he was going to need a second chest freezer. Now, we were already Even Steven for trips \u2013 I went to London last June, he got Idaho in September. But now he was throwing in a chest freezer?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Our son is learning algebraic equations. In algebra, what you do to one side of an equation, you must do to the other. If he was getting a chest freezer, I was getting a fridge for the garage, just for me.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Don agreed, and we had an electrician out to rewire the garage. The electrician noticed that I had no overhead lighting in either the laundry room or the garage and offered to remedy the situation, for a modest rise in his fee.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Did I mention that I took the kids to London with me, but that Don went to Idaho alone? For, like, ten days? With no communication?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Yeah. I had the electrician install the additional lighting.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So one glorious day in December my long-desired fridge came. It boasted a freezer on top, two crispers, and an array of door shelves. It sat for a few weeks as I grew busy with the new year and a cat desperately trying to die.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And then, one unseasonably warm and sunny day in early January, I ventured into the garage, turned on my new overhead light, and set about stocking my new garage refrigerator. I lined up beer bottles, like with like, all facing front like the toy soldiers in The Nutcracker<\/em>. That kind of organization is a great way to start the new year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Next came the sodas, the Coca-Cola labels all facing out because the rear of the cans were littered with different names. That lack of uniformity doesn\u2019t fly.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I layered juice pouches in the crispers and bottled water in the door. So pretty.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Then I opened the freezer to stock it with the breakfast goodies and ice cream bars normally stuffed in an unsightly array in the kitchen freezer. I had a plan, a tidy little map of how each item would lie in its frozen confinement.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I should have known. It was folly. All of it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There, in the freezer \u2013 MY freezer \u2013 lay package after package of game meat. There was no room for waffles. I couldn\u2019t squeeze the pancakes in anywhere. The normal people meat I\u2019d stocked up on was shunned by its wild brethren. My frozen foodstuffs were like Mary and Joseph, seeking shelter only to be told there\u2019s no room.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Don, of course, was not home. We live 95% of our lives apart. It works. There\u2019s only so much use a girl has for a guy when she\u2019s been to her comic book store or there\u2019s a new season of Ozark<\/em>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When I was finally able to confront him, he was dumbfounded. The garage refrigerator freezer was always intended for the game meat, he explained. He had actually placed our small game meat in the refrigerator freezer, leaving the chest freezer to house the big game meat.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He said this like I, and Marie Kondo, should be proud. I can\u2019t speak for Ms. Kondo, but what I felt at that moment was not pride.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nHow the Ranks compromise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago, I was doing some yard work. A pile of sticks had gathered, as they tend to do, close to our shed. I bent to gather them. When I straightened, I was face-to-bone with a set of deer antlers. Strung from hooks bored into the shed roof was a skull cap, the antlers proudly angling from each side.<\/p>\n
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