Since graduating college in December, I have not been afraid to work. At one point, I was holding down three jobs- at a Thai restaurant, a garden, and selling ads for a magazine. My resume is going to end up looking like the paper form of A.D.D.
Eventually the magazine gig panned out as a full-time job selling ads for the both magazine and its sister publication, a local newspaper. One of the projects I have somehow gotten tasked with recently is to sell ads for a Hunting and Fishing Guide. Just so that we are clear, I don't like fish and had never even touched a gun before this. Yet I set out with vigor researching taxidermists, deer meat processors, and gun shops that I could pitch the idea to.
This launched me into a whole new world filled with creepy stuffed dead animals and people who clearly were not impacted by Bambi in the least during their childhood: The World of Hunting. Have you ever noticed that there are some things in life that people just don't do half-assed? For example, people that drink Diet Coke don't just enjoy one every once in a while. Diet Coke is like cola crack- its drinkers can't ever have enough and practically don't drink anything else. I have even witnessed people get agitated when they go without it for an extended period of time.
The same goes for horseback riding. Equestrian is like the snobby hobby of the world- if you reveal that you don't know anything about it in the presence of horse people you will definitely get a look of disapproval and feel the judgment of whatever your far less superior past time is.
Hunting definitely falls into this category. In the last few weeks I have been introduced to a way of life, learning all about the lingo, different seasons and regulations, and seeing more pictures of kids with blood smeared on their faces holding the antlers of dead deer than I thought I could stomach. I have held a gun for the first time (the guy at the gun shop excitedly brought me over to a 30-lb monstrosity that he enthusiastically told me was "the kinda gun they have over in Iraq killin' all them terrorists") and have had one taxidermist tell me "I'll have to give you a call later- I am right in the middle of mounting a deer" (took all the discipline I had to not reply with "I bet you are, you dirty old man").
To top it all off, technology and taxidermy are not friends. Trying to get e-mails and ad materials from these people has been like pulling teeth. I gave up on one processing place that did not have an e-mail address or fax machine. I thought by now these were pretty standard when owning and operating a business, but nope. Not if you spend the day with flesh and dead things.
Though I am definitely ready to be out of this carcass-filled twilight zone, it has been informative and I do have respect for the people who are skilled in hunting and all associated practices. Has it made me want to camo up and shoot something? Hardly. For now, I will just stick with my Diet Coke cola crack.
Don't judge me. I control it, it doesn't control me. And I can quit any time I want. ;)
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