The Nam on Facebook: Christmas Deer

I don't know about anyone else, but this is unsurprising to me.

Let me tell you a story--a story I've told many times in many ways. I wrote about it twice in college and am still working on the final piece. By "still working on" I mean "revisit occasionally" when I have time.

Like any college kid, I attended my fair share of parties, especially over winter break. Those of us in the area know all too well what deer season is like. After all, we see dead ones splattered all over the roads. Just recently, I even had the pleasure of passing a dead-deer-collecting truck on my way to work. I also saw one as a child. It never gets any less horrifying.

So when someone leaving one such party hit a deer on his way home from my cousins' party, it wasn't really surprising. It wasn't even surprising when one of those cousins -- the one that likes to hunt, who was involved in the picture above -- departed with fellow hunter friends in a trunk to go shoot the injured deer.

From what we were told later, a cop was down there and only asked for a permit for the gun. So they shot the deer and brought it back.

This was quite the spectacle, since guests were still partying. We walked outside to see the deer in person.

I'm a vegetarian, but I'm okay with hunters. I don't agree with them, but the ones I know do put the meat to good use. Still, dead deer are dead deer. Normally, I would've probably walked out and just kind of stood on the porch. But I was drunk, so when they suggested a photo opportunity with all of us with our new guest, I agreed. I not only agreed, but I can be seen in that photo on Facebook to this day grinning. At least my poor, drunken decisions only involve minor moral dilemmas of the dietary kind.

My cousins live on an old farm. One of the old sheds has been converted into almost a party house, with a bar and pool table and everything. It's not terribly fancy and there was already and old sheet in there since one cousin's now ex-boyfriend's head had been shaved earlier, so the deer came inside to meet its final fate--skinning.

Even the non-vegetarians were put off, but not enough. I responded by drinking more, determined to make it more tolerable if I couldn't make it forgettable. I failed at both, as we were out of alcohol by that point. Meanwhile, my cousin responded by saying things like, "That's sick" then snapping a picture. Some claimed it smelled horrible. I can only assume my senses were dulled, because I didn't smell a thing.

By the end of the night, the guts were dumped into the woods. One of the shed's couches also has a nice new fur cover. Guess where that came from!

P.S. This house is also the home of Rupert.