Shotgun Shooters Stingy Hooters

White Pine Tennessee
Hog Heaven Gun Club

Now I am familiar with the adage “Southern Gentleman” and I assume that means great manners, true regard for women, generosity towards one’s kin, and drinking prodigiously but holding it well.

Maybe I’m too far North, and maybe I’m in too unusual a niche, but Tennessee shooters are the stingiest men I’ve ever met when it comes to their wimmen. They waltz past my display of lovely jewels, fairly priced, and make comments like, ‘Wayl, mah wife in’t into this nemore. (sic)”

No woman into jewelry? Okay, maybe three women in this country, but are they polygamists and do they only marry shooters? My big, flower-decorated sign announcing that Mother’s Day is just two weeks away is greeted with snorts and silly smiles, as if these women hadn’t ever borne Southern children, washed Southern overalls, or spent lonely weekends alone with the Jewelry Channel because ol’ Boone, or Charley, or Whit was out at the range, shooting targets at $39 a round, shooting the breeze with his cronies and shooting the spice out of his woman by neglecting her so thoroughly.

And by the way, my husband is a shooter with Giants games in the off season, but he’s sweet and generous and thoughtful, and he never begrudges my Jewelry Channel purchases.

No wonder these old farts think the wahf jist isn’t into it. They haven’t brought her home a little surprise in years and she’s lost all hope.

And I do allow for those guys who’ve brought little gifts home, only to have them returned the next day. That’s disheartening, to say the least, and can kill a guy’s instinct for the romantic gesture. But most women are smart enough not to do that – at least on a consistent basis – and instead, tuck the major gaffes into a drawer, offer some unusual sexual favor, if you get my drift, and the next day, take him shopping and show him what they like. That’s male adult education and I know from experience that it works.

What’s the harm in a sweet and thoughtful little gesture that costs him, oh say, $40? Consider: A three-day shooting event, with three 100-shot target events each day at an average of $35 per event. That’s a $315 investment, plus the side bets that can cost $25 each. For example, who shoots the second lowest with no matching score and is wearing green that day, something on that order. Next there’s breakfast, lunch and dinner, for I have never seen a shooter, ever, with his own brown bag lunch. It just isn’t done. That’s a conservative $75 for the weekend. Oh, and lest we forget, those shotgun shells cost a dollar apiece, so add in $90. Do I hear $500 dollar weekend? Not counting gas? Oh yes.

So isn’t the little woman worth a ten-percent tip for staying behind with junior and Ellie Mae and the two dogs and the house and god forbid, no car? Or does he hope Jethro from next door will drop by with a bottle of Southern and lascivious intentions, thereby eliminating the need for him to administer some Southern Comfort of his own on his return, such as it is, dirty, exhausted and where’s the heyl’s dinner anyway?

So here I sit on a Tennessee Saturday afternoon, my lovely, lonely wares on a picnic table covered with black velvet, my nose running because it’s kind of cold and windy under this lean-to, my lacerations, contusions and sore ribs throbbing from the fall out of the bus earlier this weekend, but that’s another story.

I don’t know why I expected it to be any different, but I did think I’d sell some stuff. After all, I made $500 in Arizona and the shoot was much smaller. But then again, those were westerners, not southerners. And that place wasn’t called Hog Heaven.

Come to think of it, that was my first clue. Missed it completely.