THE HUNT

This year my husband decided to try his hand at deer hunting.  It started out as a lark- "Oh sure!  I think that would be fun!" and has steadily grown to encompass all of our daily lives.  There are piles of items stacked knee-high in our bedroom that are "for THE HUNT".  The kids are constantly getting in trouble for scaling those piles of gear as well as unloading backpacks full of Rambo knives and insect repellant.  I tripped over the 8 man tent last night on my way to the bathroom at midnight.  Just so you know, 8 men are not going hunting with my husband.  Only one guy is, but he's not sleeping in Jordan's tent, because "that would be gay".  No, Jord needs the extra room so he has somewhere to put all his hunting paraphernalia, that's how much stuff we are talking about.  We've gone shopping multiple times for said paraphernalia, and when I expressed concern about how much we were spending he assured me that this was a one-time start up cost and he won't have to buy anything else for next year.  I made him shake on that statement.   And sign a document.

He's actually really funny and endearing about the planning stages, (I mean, if you can overlook the end result of his killing an animal).  I've caught him holding up shirts against his front at the store with a thoughtful look on his face.  He didn't see me laughing at him because I ducked down the next aisle.  I had the hardest time not throwing comments at him like: "Oh honey, that's so last season.  THIS is what everyone is wearing now to stalk and kill.  Swamp camouflage would totally bring out your eyes but alas (sigh), we are in the desert."  There are quite a few purchases that I just don't understand however, and probably never will.  Camouflage house shoes is one of them.  I just can't wrap my mind around the meaning of them.   Are they really hunting gear?  Or is he disobeying fashion rule # 73: Do not wear the same pattern head to toe.  Actually, he is most definitely breaking that particular rule.  I walked into the bedroom to find him trying on his "outfits" (I don't know what else to call them).  He wouldn't let me take a picture of him though.  I tried reasoning with him that he probably wouldn't even show up in the photo since he was wearing so much camo, he'd just be a floating face.  He didn't take the bait.

The other day I found an excel spreadsheet that he made for organizing THE HUNT.  He blushed and reminded me that he is a nerd when I waved it at him with my eyebrows raised in question. He's right though.  He is a nerd.  It's one of the things I love most about him.  I'm kind of expecting a PowerPoint presentation later in the week on where he will be hunting and procedures for finding him in case of an emergency at home.
This has gotten so huge that whenever Jordan says something about THE HUNT, I see those words in my head in capitol letters, obscuring any other thoughts that might have happened.  Granted, there's not many thoughts in my head at any particular moment, or maybe there are too many for any one of them to be clear.  I'm not sure.  Either way, THE HUNT is very distracting for me.  I'm hoping that it's everything that he wants it to be, and that he comes back recharged and rejuvenated.  That would make all the rest of this completely worth the effort of dealing with a man possessed.