The Great Outdoors

One of my husband, Kenny's, favorite things to do is hunt. He doesn't get to do it often, but when he does, he often takes our oldest daughter. But one year, I wanted to go.

"You'll have to be really quiet. We can't talk to each other a lot. You can't move around and rustle the leaves. It might be hard. Not to mention it's freezing out there at 4 am." Kenny was trying to prepare me, I knew. But I was sure it'd be a cinch.

"No problemo," I said. "I can be quiet. I'll just sign instead of using my voice." And, with that, he agreed to let me tag along.

The next morning, around 2:30 am, Kenny shook me awake. "What??? I'm trying to sleep," I said as I rolled back over.

"I thought you wanted to go with me."

"Now?" I couldn't believe how tired I was. But I dragged myself out of bed and put on the coat Kenny had gotten for me. I grabbed a cup from the cabinet and closed the door. Kenny startled and looked at me with big eyes.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," he sighed. He didn't need to tell me I closed the cabinet door too hard, but I wasn't aware of it at the moment.

After a little coffee and a seemingly endless car ride, we arrived in the part of the woods Kenny had picked out for us. He climbed up in his tree stand and I stayed in a pile of leaves on the ground. "OK. Now we wait," Kenny explained. "I'll talk with you a little later."

And so we waited. I sat on the wet ground and the leaves were itchy, so I scratched. I felt a tickle in the back of my throat, so I quietly cleared my throat. After what seemed like hours, I decided I wanted to ask Kenny how much longer. Problem was, he was up there and I was down here. So, I waved to quietly get his attention. It didn't work. I then used both hands. Nothing doing. I stood up and tried it again. Nope. Finally I gave up that "quiet" business and barked, "Hey!"

"Shhh!" Kenny was not happy.

"What do you mean? I've been quiet for hours."

"You think so, huh?" Kenny asked with a smirk on his face. Looking at his watch, he shook his head. "We've been here an hour and half. You've scared away two deer while you were rustling the leaves, clearing your throat and whispering. I love you, but it's impossible for you to know how noisy you are, and I can't hunt with you here with me. I'm sorry."

I was dumbfounded. Was I really that loud? I guess it goes to show that when you can't hear anything (including yourself), you can be the loudest thing in the woods. Oh, well. Bed, here I come!