The Antelope in the Living Room: The Real Story of Two People Sharing One Life (13 page)

CHAPTER 15

Y
OU KNOW HOW YOU
see those older couples who play golf together? Usually on a commercial for either adult diapers or Viagra? Perry and I will never be one of those couples. And hopefully not just because we don’t play golf.

When we were dating, lo, those many years ago, I enthusiastically went to the ranch with Perry. I thought it was kind of cozy and romantic to sit in a deer blind with him and watch the sun come up as we leaned in close to each other and Perry whispered sweet sentiments in my ear, such as, “See that buck? He’s too young to shoot this year.”

But after about a year of dating, some of the novelty began to wear off. I do not enjoy any activity that begins at five thirty in the morning, even if it involves bacon and eggs. And hunting does
not. Plus, Perry began to treat me more like a real hunting partner as my skill level grew, so instead of whispering to each other, I was told to “be quiet!” and “quit moving so much!”

Eventually I completely gave up on being a morning hunter and opted for the evening hunt instead. It was also around this time that Perry decided I was accomplished enough to hunt on my own. So he’d put me in a deer blind by myself and then drive off to his own tripod somewhere, where he could sit and commune quietly with nature instead of his girlfriend, who was apparently too loud and too fidgety. Old Love came early to the hunting scene.

This is the point when I began to pack my little camouflage hunting backpack with various
InStyle
and
Glamour
magazines, because what else was I going to do while I sat there for three hours by myself? Look at a bunch of deer milling around?

And I began to observe an interesting phenomenon. Perry always made sure he washed all our hunting clothes in scent-free laundry detergent. We had to skip the deodorant and spray ourselves down with something that can only be described as the scent of dirt. He surrounded the area with doe urine to mask any remaining scent because, according to hunters everywhere, deer have an incredibly sharp sense of smell.

However, my extensive research in the form of perusing fashion magazines while I sat in a deer blind led me to the conclusion that deer seemed to prefer the scent of Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds perfume, because all those perfume samples falling out of my magazines didn’t seem to inhibit their activity at all. Which made it seem kind of stupid that I’d spent all that time believing I had to smell like dirt.

(Did I really just reference Liz Taylor’s White Diamonds
perfume? Apparently I was reading back issues of magazines from the mid-1980s.)

Since I have a mind for science (No. I don’t.), I decided to take my research even further and began to test the deer’s sensitivity to noise and movement. Specifically, I began to lean out the windows of the deer blind and yell, “HEY! HEY, DEER! OVER HERE! LOOK AT ME!”

And let me tell you, those deer would look up at me and go right back to eating oats.

The people on those hunting shows have been doing it ALL WRONG.

Because I am a giver, I shared my findings with Perry. I thought he would be thrilled to know that he could now wear Old Spice and blast music while he hunted. Not that he does either of those things even when he’s not hunting, but you know, he might have wanted to start.

But after I told him my scientific conclusions, he replied, “Well, clearly those deer are smart enough to realize that if you’re dumb enough to hang out the window and yell at them, you’re not planning to shoot them.”

Whatever. Like they can reason that out.

Part of the reason I’d decided I couldn’t shoot deer anymore was because of an incident that had happened the previous season. I’d agonized over shooting a doe that was out on the field of oats eating with all her doe friends, because I was afraid they’d all be so sad. But then I remembered Perry’s voice telling me we really needed more venison in the freezer to get us through the long, hard San Antonio winter, so I took the shot.

The doe dropped to the ground, and all her doe friends looked up for a minute and then went right back to eating. Seriously. Like
they didn’t even care about what had just happened to their friend. They just acted like animals. And I decided I couldn’t emotionally handle shooting a deer ever again.

However, a pig was a different story.

South Texas is overrun with wild hogs. And before you go all
Charlotte’s Web
(But WILBUR!) on me, you need to know that they are not pink and cute. They are hairy and have tusks and will tear up a ranch like it’s their job. So you have to manage the hog population, especially since they also procreate like they’re part of the Duggar family.

So one evening as I sat reading about Gwyneth Paltrow’s new exercise regimen, I looked up and saw that there was a huge pack of wild hogs in front of me. I put down my magazine, picked up my gun, and aimed carefully. As soon as I made the shot, one of the biggest hogs in the pack dropped to the ground, and the rest of the pack ran back into the brush.

Looks like Mama is eating pork chops tonight.

I sat there staring at the pig lying in front of me to make sure it was really dead and I didn’t need to shoot it again. But it was stone-cold dead. I went back to reading about Gwyneth and her macrobiotic meals because I knew it would still be at least an hour before Perry would be back to pick me up.

(This is the other reason I stopped hunting with Perry. He’d leave me in that deer blind until way after dark. Which, one, was scary. And, two, meant that I couldn’t even read unless I pulled out my flashlight or some scary hitchhikers/serial killers showed up and lit a campfire nearby, offering me a little light to see by.)

(This is the type of scenario I began to imagine as I sat alone in the dark for what felt like hours.)

As I waited for Perry and debated whether or not I could be
like Gwyneth and learn to prefer eating air instead of real food for three meals a day, I thought about how proud of me he was going to be for shooting that hog. It had been a long time since I’d shot something on my own, and I knew he’d be impressed. Especially since it had obviously been such a perfect shot.

About that time, I began to hear the rumble of his Ford F-350 driving toward me. As I looked to see what direction he was coming from, I watched the hog I’d shot that had been lying there for almost two hours jump up, shake itself off like it had just woken up from a nap, and trot back into the thicket of mesquite trees like nothing had ever happened.

What the actual heck?

It was a hog playing possum.

And that’s why I don’t hunt anymore. I can’t handle the stress. If an animal appears to be dead for the better part of two hours, then by all means, it should stay dead. That’s like some sort of law of basic science. I’m pretty sure Marlin Perkins said it one time.

While hunting became an interest we no longer shared (or at least I no longer pretended to share), we both enjoy fishing at the coast. Well, Perry enjoys fishing, and I don’t mind spending a day on a boat working on my tan while holding a fishing pole.

So for several summers we planned an annual beach vacation down to Port Aransas. Some friends had a condo they would let us use, and it was a delightful way to spend a few days. We’d usually spend the first half of the week by ourselves and then invite a few friends to join us for the last half of the week, and we’d eat fresh seafood and swim out in the waves and occasionally fish.

Then one summer Perry decided it might be fun for a group of
us to go out on a deep-sea fishing excursion for the day. I agreed to this because I must have not heard him when he suggested it and just said yes because I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t paying attention.

But here’s the thing. As I mentioned in an earlier chapter of this very book, I have motion-sickness issues.

(I have recently traced the origin of these issues back to a childhood of riding in the backseat of my dad’s car. He has never met a stretch of road that he doesn’t like to pretend is the last lap of the Indy 500
 
—but with more twists, turns, and weaving in and out of traffic.)

So, in hindsight, deep-sea fishing
 
—not really the best idea.

But I was reeled in (get it?) by the thought of all the cool fish we might catch. Maybe I’d catch a huge swordfish, even though I’m pretty sure they don’t live in the Gulf of Mexico. But they might have decided to go there for vacation, and what if I was the first person to catch one?

Plus, I really wanted to go because I knew Perry really wanted me to go. And sometimes (a lot of the time) marriage is about being selfless. So I convinced myself it was going to be a great trip.
Seasickness has no hold on me. It’s all about the power of POSITIVE THINKING. OPTIMISTS UNITE. Power to the (seasick) people!

However, as a precaution, I stocked up on Dramamine, Dramamine patches, and ginger pills, which are supposed to help with the motion sickness.

Because I am like a Girl Scout. Always prepared
 
—and a big fan of cookies.

The details of that morning are hazy, which is probably due to the fact that I’d already popped two Dramamine and was wearing a Dramamine patch on my arm. I just remember that we left well
before daybreak, which should have been my first clue that I was not necessarily cut out for deep-sea fishing expeditions.

We arrived at the boat and were met by Captain Awesome and his first lieutenant, Tattoo. Honestly, I don’t remember their real names, so I just made those up. (It’s called CREATIVE LICENSE because I was too whacked out on Dramamine to remember anything.)

The boat began heading out toward the deep sea. And here’s a critical fact that I was not previously aware of: it takes a long time to get out to the deep sea. A really long time. Fear started to overtake me as I realized that I couldn’t just decide midday that I’d had enough of the fishing. I was clearly going to be stuck out at sea. Just like Gilligan.

So I popped another Dramamine to quell my rising fear.

It’s a good thing that this was years before the Carnival Cruise debacle occurred, or I would have jumped ship so fast it would have made your head spin. I mean, those people were stuck out on the middle of the ocean eating only pickles and onions and pooping in paper bags. Used paper bags. Kathie Lee Gifford never sang about that on those old commercials. “In the morning, in the evening, ain’t we got an engine fire and bags you can poop in?” It’s not as catchy.

Anyway, we finally stopped at our destination, which was, for lack of a better term, in the middle of the dadgum ocean. I couldn’t see the shore. I COULDN’T SEE THE SHORE.

Even now I can still feel the panic.

And the boat started rocking. Not rocking in a good way, like “rocking” from all the fun we were having. Oh, no. It was rocking because of the waves. Oh, sweet mercy, the waves. The sea was angry that day, my friends. But not as angry as my stomach, which
immediately began a mutiny on every meal I had ever consumed in my life.

Captain Awesome and Tattoo tried to distract me by baiting my hook and handing me a fishing pole. I think the logic was that if I could start catching fish, I would forget about writing my will and screaming, “JUST KILL ME NOW” in between singing verses of old spirituals.

All of a sudden, my fishing pole almost bent in half, and the line started dragging like crazy. Everyone was yelling at me to reel, reel, REEL! So I did, and I forgot I was in total agony because I was about to bring in the largest fish ever caught in Texas deep-sea-fishing history.

And I did catch something very large. Our boat.

That’s right, my friends. (Why am I talking like the Most Interesting Man in the World on those Dos Equis commercials? When he fishes, the fish jump into his boat just to be near him. Stay thirsty, my friends.) My line had gotten wrapped around our boat motor. And that pretty much sums up how the rest of our day went.

Perry and his friends Todd and Jay fished with Captain Awesome and Tattoo while I lay on the back of the boat, popping Dramamine like they were Smarties, hoping that seagulls would carry me off and drop me in the mouth of a whale to put the final nail in this nautical nightmare I was living out.