“Why is this town so anti-marshmallow?”
“Ever been Snipe hunting?” Janine asks us. She’s tall and blonde like an Aryan. The four city kids blink in confusion. I meet my sister’s eyes to speak via telepathy, Fucking country folk. Janine is the oldest of the Sessions, a Mormon family with eleven children ranging in age from 19 to eight who live down the dirt road from my two cousin’s house in the woods.
“Eleven kids?” I had asked earlier, “Do you guys dress in sailor outfits and sing?”
“No?” Olivia, one of the middle children had answered, obviously confused.
“Is Snipe hunting when you go hunting with sniper guns?” My cousin Michael manages to get a little excited about the ordeal at the idea of big ass guns being used.
“No,” Janine smirks. “But this is way better than cow tipping.”
Cow tipping was the original plan when the kids came over, faces flushed from cold explaining we were going to play some “night games”. Being that we are deep into the woods, I figured that meant we were either going to rape someone or be raped ourselves.
I myself have no idea where the hell my family has brought me for Thanksgiving. I believe we are approximately forty miles past The Middle of Nowhere in a small town called Nutrioso, which my mother calls “Nuttioso” in honor of her sister Polly who we affectionately call “Nutty Boots” and owns a house here. Getting to the town wasn’t easy, “Go past a lake,” my mother reads from one part of the directions my aunt gave her, “There will be shitty houses on the left, go past them until you get to the fork in the road, merge right.”
“I need street signs!” my dad yells.
“There are none!” my mother answers.
“Where are we?” my sister wines from the backseat.
“Hell,” I answer glumly. I whip out my phone to text message my woes. “Searching for service” it tells me. Fuck.
This year my aunt has decided we should “get back to our roots” and “be one with nature.” I myself love nothing more than to celebrate the harvest time when white man came, stole the land, spread disease, and raped and pillaged entire Indian villages. It makes me happy that as Americans we gave the Native Americans back a holiday in which every year we could relive the magic with commemorative football games and giant Charlie Brown balloons while we give thanks for Youtube. My aunt’s house is cozy and impeccably decorated for a cabin. Every night we spent there I imagined we’d wake up dead, tortured and killed like the family from In Cold Blood. This made life in the woods a little more exciting. Every night I wore my cutest Nick and Nora pajamas just in case.
“Mom, we need the golf clubs and pillow cases,” Craig, the second oldest at seventeen, waltzes into his “Mclogsion”, as my cousins called it, a log cabin mini-mansion. It is decorated like any log cabin should be with bear, elk, and duck adorning the walls, which I can only assume is very embarrassing for the animals.
“Going Snipe hunting?” Mrs. Sessions, a plump woman with her light brown hair cut into a bob asks then turns to look my cousin Michael straight in the eye, “Be careful. They bite.”
Three of the eleven kids came with us in Janine’s car; Janine, Craig, and Shirley, age fourteen. Despite being in Deliverance Country, we had to drive twenty miles down dirt roads to get to “the right spot”.
“Should we tell them this is weird?” I asked quietly from the back seat of the Jeep.
“Probably not,” my cousin Daniel answered, “Unless you want to get shot.”
Janine stopped the car, “OK, we’re here. This is the perfect place to hunt Snipes.” We unload ourselves and turn on our flashlights. Janine holds hers to her face like she’s telling a ghost story, “You have to be totally quiet and motion-less when you hunt Snipes,” she explains.
“Otherwise, they’ll attack you,” chimes in Craig.
“Yeah,” she agrees, “Otherwise they’ll attack you.”
“They might be about the size of a chicken,” Shirley says, “But they could really hurt you if you scare them.”
“So, what you do is take the pillow case,” Craig demonstrates as he explains, “and throw it over the Snipe. It’ll start to scream when you do this though, so that’s when you have to take the golf club and hit its head until it stops. It’ll get a little bloody, probably.”
“What does one do with one of the Snipe pillowcases?” my cousin Michael asked. “Can one reuse it?”
“Sometimes,” Craig answers. “Depends on how bloody it is.”
I can’t see them, but I know my relative’s mouths are wide open with disgust. Mine is anyway.
“Um,” I start, “I don’t want to do this.”
“Yeah!” My sister agrees whole-heartedly. Her heart bleeds with sympathy for all animals.
“No, no, no,” Janine says, “It’ll totally be OK. Turn off your lights. We’re going to go on the other side of the field to try to catch our own.”
The lights went out and everything went black.
Unlike in the city where no matter what you always have ambient light, the country is blacker than anything you could ever imagine. Blacker than anything Madonna could ever adopt. And its scary as hell. And quiet. I imagine being out in the woods in the dark is a lot like being dead: Cold. Silent. Black.
The four of us bunched together, freezing in the thirty degree weather, something else we weren’t used to being from Phoenix where are winters last a week with temperatures ranging from 65 to 70 degrees as the low.
Elk sounded somewhere in the distance. “That’s not a Snipe… is it?” My sister panicked.
Five minutes went by.
Then ten.
Finally fifteen.
“I think we’re being screwed with,” my cousin Michael whispered gripping the golf club, “Let’s turn back.”
“We don’t know where we’re going,” Daniel says.
“I’m cold,” I offer.
“Me too,” my sister concurs.
That’s when the laughing started. Big, full, boisterous laughing from all three of the Session kids.
“Boo!” The youngest one bellowed from behind a tree.
Janine wiped her eyes, which were tearing from laughing so hard, “How’d you enjoy Snipe hunting?”
“It was a joke, you guys,” Craig chuckled, “We usually just drop one guy off in the woods. You were lucky you were all together!”
We laugh a nervous laugh and I wonder if they’re going to actually start raping us now. And/or kill us, but instead they take us back to their house and ask us if we want some hot chocolate. We declined. Lord knows it was probably laced with arsenic.
Quote of the day:
(As he places his hand in the oven) “Yep, its five-hundred degrees.”
- My Uncle Randy making sure the oven was correct. He was completely serious.
“Eleven kids?” I had asked earlier, “Do you guys dress in sailor outfits and sing?”
“No?” Olivia, one of the middle children had answered, obviously confused.
“Is Snipe hunting when you go hunting with sniper guns?” My cousin Michael manages to get a little excited about the ordeal at the idea of big ass guns being used.
“No,” Janine smirks. “But this is way better than cow tipping.”
Cow tipping was the original plan when the kids came over, faces flushed from cold explaining we were going to play some “night games”. Being that we are deep into the woods, I figured that meant we were either going to rape someone or be raped ourselves.
I myself have no idea where the hell my family has brought me for Thanksgiving. I believe we are approximately forty miles past The Middle of Nowhere in a small town called Nutrioso, which my mother calls “Nuttioso” in honor of her sister Polly who we affectionately call “Nutty Boots” and owns a house here. Getting to the town wasn’t easy, “Go past a lake,” my mother reads from one part of the directions my aunt gave her, “There will be shitty houses on the left, go past them until you get to the fork in the road, merge right.”
“I need street signs!” my dad yells.
“There are none!” my mother answers.
“Where are we?” my sister wines from the backseat.
“Hell,” I answer glumly. I whip out my phone to text message my woes. “Searching for service” it tells me. Fuck.
This year my aunt has decided we should “get back to our roots” and “be one with nature.” I myself love nothing more than to celebrate the harvest time when white man came, stole the land, spread disease, and raped and pillaged entire Indian villages. It makes me happy that as Americans we gave the Native Americans back a holiday in which every year we could relive the magic with commemorative football games and giant Charlie Brown balloons while we give thanks for Youtube. My aunt’s house is cozy and impeccably decorated for a cabin. Every night we spent there I imagined we’d wake up dead, tortured and killed like the family from In Cold Blood. This made life in the woods a little more exciting. Every night I wore my cutest Nick and Nora pajamas just in case.
“Mom, we need the golf clubs and pillow cases,” Craig, the second oldest at seventeen, waltzes into his “Mclogsion”, as my cousins called it, a log cabin mini-mansion. It is decorated like any log cabin should be with bear, elk, and duck adorning the walls, which I can only assume is very embarrassing for the animals.
“Going Snipe hunting?” Mrs. Sessions, a plump woman with her light brown hair cut into a bob asks then turns to look my cousin Michael straight in the eye, “Be careful. They bite.”
Three of the eleven kids came with us in Janine’s car; Janine, Craig, and Shirley, age fourteen. Despite being in Deliverance Country, we had to drive twenty miles down dirt roads to get to “the right spot”.
“Should we tell them this is weird?” I asked quietly from the back seat of the Jeep.
“Probably not,” my cousin Daniel answered, “Unless you want to get shot.”
Janine stopped the car, “OK, we’re here. This is the perfect place to hunt Snipes.” We unload ourselves and turn on our flashlights. Janine holds hers to her face like she’s telling a ghost story, “You have to be totally quiet and motion-less when you hunt Snipes,” she explains.
“Otherwise, they’ll attack you,” chimes in Craig.
“Yeah,” she agrees, “Otherwise they’ll attack you.”
“They might be about the size of a chicken,” Shirley says, “But they could really hurt you if you scare them.”
“So, what you do is take the pillow case,” Craig demonstrates as he explains, “and throw it over the Snipe. It’ll start to scream when you do this though, so that’s when you have to take the golf club and hit its head until it stops. It’ll get a little bloody, probably.”
“What does one do with one of the Snipe pillowcases?” my cousin Michael asked. “Can one reuse it?”
“Sometimes,” Craig answers. “Depends on how bloody it is.”
I can’t see them, but I know my relative’s mouths are wide open with disgust. Mine is anyway.
“Um,” I start, “I don’t want to do this.”
“Yeah!” My sister agrees whole-heartedly. Her heart bleeds with sympathy for all animals.
“No, no, no,” Janine says, “It’ll totally be OK. Turn off your lights. We’re going to go on the other side of the field to try to catch our own.”
The lights went out and everything went black.
Unlike in the city where no matter what you always have ambient light, the country is blacker than anything you could ever imagine. Blacker than anything Madonna could ever adopt. And its scary as hell. And quiet. I imagine being out in the woods in the dark is a lot like being dead: Cold. Silent. Black.
The four of us bunched together, freezing in the thirty degree weather, something else we weren’t used to being from Phoenix where are winters last a week with temperatures ranging from 65 to 70 degrees as the low.
Elk sounded somewhere in the distance. “That’s not a Snipe… is it?” My sister panicked.
Five minutes went by.
Then ten.
Finally fifteen.
“I think we’re being screwed with,” my cousin Michael whispered gripping the golf club, “Let’s turn back.”
“We don’t know where we’re going,” Daniel says.
“I’m cold,” I offer.
“Me too,” my sister concurs.
That’s when the laughing started. Big, full, boisterous laughing from all three of the Session kids.
“Boo!” The youngest one bellowed from behind a tree.
Janine wiped her eyes, which were tearing from laughing so hard, “How’d you enjoy Snipe hunting?”
“It was a joke, you guys,” Craig chuckled, “We usually just drop one guy off in the woods. You were lucky you were all together!”
We laugh a nervous laugh and I wonder if they’re going to actually start raping us now. And/or kill us, but instead they take us back to their house and ask us if we want some hot chocolate. We declined. Lord knows it was probably laced with arsenic.
Quote of the day:
(As he places his hand in the oven) “Yep, its five-hundred degrees.”
- My Uncle Randy making sure the oven was correct. He was completely serious.
