It's been a rather hectic week since my last blog post; the start of quail season (no birds), the continuation of duck season (a few more birds, including the year's first greenhead and greenwing), getting ready for the deer gun opener in two days ("No horn porn and if it's brown it's down. Or gray. Or whatever" is this year's theme), the need to shoot a turkey before the fall season ends in a few days, a sick child, a sick wife, trying to get one story finished and sent off, travel for another F&S assignment, some news of pending work changes and the work involved in said changes, trying not to forget to clean the shower so as to avoid the weekly beating from the wife and seemingly dozens of other distractions, all of them blog-worthy.
But will I write about them? No, (at least not yet). So in lieu of all that I'll just make a dick joke instead...
Tuesday found me on the road on a story assignment, so I spent Tuesday night in ye old home town before continuing on the next morning. So naturally I hit all the used book stores searching for literary trash and treasure, as I always do when I find myself in a university town with a plethora of good used bookshops.
Most of them know me, or at least know who I am and what I generally look for, and as I walked into one particular shop owned by a sweet old marmishy-looking spinster, she jumped up and said (Verbatim. I am not making this up) "Hey, I bet you'd like a mighty nice clapstick, wouldn't you?"
I froze, taken aback at this most intimate and personal of questions, and it took me a second to realize she was talking about Peter Hathaway Capstick, famous churner of purple-prosed African hunting adventure of sometimes dubious authenticity.
"I don't see many Clapsticks any more, but this one's really nice and I thought of you," she said. I bit down, hard, on my lower lip to keep from laughing. The smartass in me longed, nay, ached, to reply "I used to have one of those, but penicillin cleared it up nicely."
But of course, I didn't. And though I have no idea why she got it in her head that it was "Clapstick" I didn't correct her for fear of offending. What else could I do?
So I came home with the Clapstick. Now my wife is gonna kill me...
You touched on something in your post briefly that warrants further investigation. Are you and I the only idiots on the planet that have been relegated to shower cleaning duty by our respectful love interests? How in the hell does that happen anyway?
ReplyDeleteShot some Scaled Quail this week. I'm nearly drunk with a sense of accomplishment, having searched for the little gray bastards for what seems like forever.
Well, I have no choice. My wife is bigger, stronger, faster and meaner than I am.
ReplyDeleteOK, I'm lying. She's much nicer, but as a member of the "work from home" demographic I try to help out around the house.
I didn't actually foresee that when I started freelancing. I was thinking along the lines of "You too can have an exciting, adventurous career from the comfort of your own home! Be your own boss!" When in reality it's more like "It's Thursday. Thursday is toilet cleaning day! Scrub today, for tomorrow we vacuum!"
Congrats on the scalies. I'm going to try for them a little later this year out in the panhandle.
I talked to the biologist for Black Kettle a while back. He expected it to perform pretty well this year based on Spring conditions and clutch count. A little farther South, but something worth hitting. The area is huge! I'm heading down there in January. I'd love to hear how you do so I can fine tune my annual new year trip. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteAhhh,
ReplyDeleteThe visicitudes of domestic bliss. I venture to guess that there are more men scrubbing shower and bath enclosures than we know of...
I have my eyes set on the Connecticut Arms 16 RBL, sooner or later it will be mine! Then I will learn the fine art of chasing quail.
Best Regards,
Albert A Rasch
The Range Reviews: AGI Armorer's Course Colt 1911
Black Kettle is a really cool place, and like all our national grasslands, a really interesting story. I hunted down there some when I first moved up here but I haven't hunted down that way since my old pointer died.
ReplyDeleteIf you feel like company (such as it is) when you come down let me know. It's becoming more obvious that local conditions here are pretty grim this year so if I want to get my pup in birds I'm going to have to go north and/or south.
Albert, when the RBL 20 first came out a few years ago Galazan was offering a special launch price of something like (I'm guessing here) around $2800 or so for the base model. I wanted one desperately but I was about $2750 short..
Now they're $3,759 and I'm about $3,659 short. I'm gaining...
whoops, meant to say not gaining...
ReplyDeleteNow I won't be able to look at any of my "Clapsticks" on the shelf without getting a laugh. That is a good one. And don't worry - shower duty leads to more time off for good behavior....
ReplyDelete