273 Pieces.

I went hunting this weekend with my family and some family friends. This being my first time, the fact that I am a vegetarian, and that I am a girl, all were no less than shocked when I was the most excited to get out there and hunt the hogs. First, I need to uncover some humorous details. The guy whose ranch we went on, he is a childhood friend of my dad's who now lives in Dallas. Most people hunt hogs out of pick-up trucks but due to the fact that he doesn't have one, our hunting machine was a BMW X5 with all the lights covered with duck tape and all the windows (including the sunroof) was sucked into the car. I am kneeling on a phone book on the center console with the majority of my body out of the sunroof. I have a night vision scope and my duties as "spotter" is to spot any large animals and to direct the driver, since the lights are blacked out of course. My dad and his friend are carrying A-15 assault rifles, sticking out of a luxury car, with a teenage vegetarian girl spotting out the sunroof on a booster seat giving them direction. We hunted from 8:30 until 3:30 at night, and the entire time, we only saw one boar..at 8:47. I felt like I was in a video game, the world around me completely green and black, seeking out the portal to the next level. I spotted at least 10 raccoons and 6 deer and an armadillo, but no pork portals. Looking back, I am glad that we didn't ascend, for I know that given the chance, I wouldn't have shot a hog. He wouldn't know whats coming, wouldn't know that this trip to dinner is a fatal one. And gauging by my novice at hunting, my empathy with the prey, and the enormous heft and intimidation of the assault rifle, I would have probably made a bad shot, wounding the animal, and leaving it to suffer. Despite all the could be's, the actual adventure was no less than thrilling. Navigating through the woods in the pitch black, armed with assault rifles, hearing faint snorts of hogs, and howls of coyotes in the denser woods beside us, and watching two grown men leap out in full hunting mode simply because I saw a raccoon gave me a very memorable experience. Those raccoons should be proud, surviving a death stare down the barrel of a AR-15, a feat most grown men never walk away from in less than 273 pieces.

OverandOut