Housekeeping Tips For Hunters And Serial Killers

A good hunter can expertly “field dress” big game in a matter of minutes. Using a sharp knife and a careful eye they’ll remove the entrails leaving a clean carcass which will cool faster, is easier to transport, and is prepared for the eventual butchering process. Years of experience have taught them precisely where to cut for a minimum of hassle. It takes only a few minutes from shooting big game (antelope, deer, elk, moose, mammoth, etc…) to a field dressed carcass jauntily hung from a tree and a hero’s welcome back at camp.

I am exactly unlike like what I’ve described. Once the animal is dead, I turn from cunning predator to a klutzy moron. Apparently I can operate a rifle but shouldn’t be anywhere near a sharp knife?

It’s not like I haven’t done it before. I can and have field dressed plenty of animals. Nor do I screw up the end product. I’ve never ruined the meat. Slow and gruesome but no wasted meat? I guess it’s a success?

Maybe I’m so paranoid about cutting into something I shouldn’t that I wind up spending twice as long as most hunters? Whatever the reason, I struggle every damn time! I move in fractions of inches. I noodle around with a knife here and there; pondering connective tissues, fat pockets, and oh dear God what the hell is that thing? (Trust me on this. You’ll see some scary shit poking around inside an animal!) It takes me forever. Other hunters seem to go at it easily; “snip snip we’re done”. I go on a horrific voyage of discovery. My back aches, my knee freezes to the snowy ground, I work up a sweat, my hat falls off, I lose a glove, it’s pathetic. I wind up arm deep in a steamy disgusting smelly chest cavity wondering how in the hell people make it sound so easy.

Eventually I finish and look around. The horror scene I’ve created is epic. There is blood everywhere. On my boots, on my knees, on the tree next to me, in a pile of leaves five feet away. It’s pretty much everywhere within a surprisingly large radius.

That’s just the start of it. I probably scratched my nose and now it’s all over my face. Plus how did I get slime on my eyebrow? Oh hell no! Once I gut a deer I can think of nothing else until I get a hot shower and become human again.

I’ll drag the carcass out of the forest mumbling that I should take up a hobby that doesn’t involve entrails. At least twice I’ll trip over a log while pulling the heavy load and face plant. This aids the transition from bloody and sweaty to bloody, covered with leaves, and iced up with wet snow. I suck!

I emerge from the forest looking like that guy from a horror movie.

It happens every time!

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This year was even worse than usual. I trudged in from the forest only to realize that I’d worn (and therefore ruined) a perfectly decent pair of jeans. They looked like I’d slaughtered a dozen moose and tossed them in a wood chipper while dancing around in circles. I was the guy that gives PETA nightmares. Why hadn’t I worn a crappy pair of pants that was already stained from painting or working on engines? Idiot!

After I got the deer in the bed of the truck I paused at the truck’s door. If I sat in my beloved truck dressed in this mess I’d ruin my interior. I don’t mind dirt and stuff in a truck… but organs? No way!

I was halfway hypothermic but my truck deserves better. I stood in the snow and stripped off anything that was gruesome or soaked in something I couldn’t readily identify as snow melt. Within seconds I was down to a pair of heavy socks, long underwear, and a t-shirt. I threw everything else in the truck bed. Good for me.  I’d done my very best to preserve my vehicle!

Then, because I’m an idiot, I climbed up in the bed, past the deer, and made my way to the pile of nasty clothes. Two minutes rooting around for the truck keys I’d left in the pocket were the longest two minutes of my life. No vehicles rumbled down the dirt road while I was performing this maneuverer. We should all be happy that humanity was spared my potential moment of indignity. During my adventure in the truck bed, the thermal underwear somehow brushed against something and… screw it, they were tossed in the truck bed too. The socks were more ice than insulation so I tossed them too.

It took a long time until the heater was doing it’s thing but once the blessed heat came on everything looked a lot more reasonable. I wondered what would happen if I got picked up for speeding. Is driving while smelly, shivering, naked, and stupid looking a crime? I drove carefully.

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But I’m not here to talk about my failings. I’m here to endorse a product that rectifies some of the chaos.

I got home after an uneventful drive and tiptoed to the laundry room with jeans that were not quite frozen and more or less trashed. (Thankfully Mrs. Curmudgeon wasn’t there.)

Here were perfectly decent jeans that now could never be worn anywhere but around the homestead. (Or possibly Wall-Mart… those folks will wear anything.) Mrs. Curmudgeon, presumably because she’s a genius, had left something above the washing machine. What voodoo was this?

If you look like a crime scene. This will fix your clothes!

I’m not sure what’s in this stuff but I sprayed it all over my jeans and washed them with regular detergent too. Then, because I simply assumed they were a disaster, I threw in more detergent and ran the washer again.

End result? Good as new!

I have no idea what amazing chemical miracle is in that bottle but I heartily endorse it. You should get a bottle right now! You won’t be sorry. It’s perfect for clueless hunters who wind up covered in far too much blood. Or perhaps serial killers; I wouldn’t know about that.

A.C.

P.S. I get no money from the sale of this product. I don’t give a crap whether you buy it or not. For that matter, I’m not even sure a detergent company would want an endorsement from someone who looks like a walking crime scene.