…Tred Barta

There are a lot of good reasons for having Mike as a friend. One is that every phone call brings a complete surprise.

Tonight Mike says he intends to go shoot mooses, and he wants me to help.

As I have noted before, Mike lives in New Hampshire, which is a couple of hundred miles north of Canada. I think. And they have mooses. So naturally, every man in his right mind wants to kill them. Mike is no exception. He said something about how it works. You buy a ticket or enter the Moose Murder Raffle or something, and then they clear you to whack the moose. Unless of course it’s a “made moose,” in which case, you have to go straight to the Don.

Here’s one possible obstacle to the plan. Mike doesn’t own a single firearm. He owns three Dan Wesson barrels, but some crackhead in Ocala Florida has the gun itself, which is now the ultimate snubnose. Every hunting expert except Tred Barta agrees: when hunting mooses, a firearm is a good thing to have. Barta falls on møøses from the branches of trees, naked except for a pair of pink bunny slippers and a coat of Kiwi shoe polish, and kills them by squeezing their carotid arteries with his thighs.

He wasn’t able to sell the video to the Versus Network, but a certain segment of the German population eats it up.

I was thinking it might be incredibly cool to waste mooses with the Desert Eagle. Finally, a legitimate use for it.

Mike’s theory was that I would let him use my K31, while I would rely on the highly questionable Romak III. I still don’t own a hunting rifle. I have a 16-gauge shotgun which accepts rifled slugs, but I have no idea whether I can hit anything with it or not.

Here’s another possible obstacle. Neither one of us knows a damn thing about hunting. The most rewarding type of hunting I’ve done involved sneaking up on rabbits and blowing their tiny brains out with a .22. Other than that, I have done things like 1. waiting unsuccessfully for foxes to walk by, 2. waiting unsuccessfully for groundhogs to go after my grandmother’s garden, and 3. waiting unsuccessfully for squirrels to come out where I could shoot them. I’ve also wiped out entire communities of blackbirds and killed an entire generation of lizards with a BB gun. I think Mike has shot some pigs and turkeys. Not sure. And I shot a fine bass with a deer rifle. But neither one of us is ready for the Outdoor Network.

Mike pointed out that a dead moose weighs about 3,000 pounds, give or take, which is considerably more than either of us can carry. So he’s wondering what we’re supposed to do when the moose kacks. Is that really our problem? Can’t we just leave it on the ground, to molder its way into the ecosystem and become a nourishing meal for Gaia? Isn’t slaughter the whole point? Do we really have to eat the moose?

I know what you’re thinking. This would make us wasteful and unethical hunters, and everyone would despise us. But you only think that because I haven’t mentioned the crucial part of the plan: we wouldn’t tell anyone we did it.

If we cut it up and keep it, where do we put it? Especially me. There is no way 1500 pounds of dead moose will fit in a carry-on. And if we put it on the hood of Mike’s Prius, the front tires will just pop. And if it does run, it will strain the car so much, we’ll have to stop every hundred feet to wind it back up.

Is it okay for a couple of guys who shoot well yet have no other qualifications to go out and play moose sniper, or is it a shameful, presumptuous, disgraceful so on and so forth?

Naturally, I agreed to do it. There was never any question. I just want to know if that was a stupid thing to do. Not that that would change anything.

Speaking of Tred Barta, I have become completely addicted to his show. Even though he picks up absolutely every piece of excrement he sees–even those left by his crew–and fondles it and pets it and holds it right up to his face, and then he eats sandwiches without washing his hands. And the other day he did a nude scene. You think I’m kidding. They had to censor it. Except in Germany. Where they saved it for sweeps week.

I honestly think I would rather hunt with this guy than anyone else in the universe. He is so far beyond insane there isn’t even a word for it. And he’s proud of it. And he hates hippies.

You can turn on any hunting show and watch people do things correctly. Only Barta will shoot a furious grizzly in the face with a bow, from like six feet away. Only Barta will butcher a moose with a chainsaw. Or, wait, maybe that’s the way everyone does it.

I would kill to be this guy’s idiot sidekick, just for the laughs. “Tred, when you were applying shoe polish to your buttocks, you missed a spot.” “Thanks, Steve. If the moose had seen that, our whole day would have been wasted.”

Maybe Mike and I could have a show. Steve and Mike Fail to Kill a Moose. Steve and Mike Fail to Kill a Bear. Steve and Mike Forget the Ammunition and Have Their Clothes Pecked Off by Angry Marsh Hens. Whatever those are. I’m just brainstorming here. Let’s not get hung up on specifics.

As always, I await and treasure your input.