“You win some, and you lose some. And then there is that little-known third category.” - Al Gore (2004)
“Superficially, it might be said that the function of the kidney is to make urine; but in a more considered view one can say that the kidneys make the stuff of philosophy itself.” - Homer William Smith (1943)
The first few weeks or so of November always seems a little strange. There’s a couple of good reasons, especially in an election year.
They say that somewhere around 160 million of those eligible, drop what ever it is that they have been doing lately, and they mark a dot on a piece of paper. And then, 160 million of us collectively hold their breath.
This making your mark on the piece of paper, is some kind of patriotic and symbolic, and somewhat feeble attempt, to try to convince the professors at some Electoral College to help better manage our hard fought tax dollars.
Some may refer to it as tax dollar waste and abuse. Some might call it tax dollar theft. However you may look at it, or what you may call it, the whole process has a unique strangeness about it.
Even a bit stranger, there is they say, another 80 million or so eligible, who don’t, or won’t, mark any paper. And it makes one ponder just why this it is, that these 80 million or so folks, may have decided that they don’t have the time, or inclination, to worry the professors at the Electoral College?
All in all, in some strange way, it just plain smells a little funny.
Now they say that in the good old US of A, that there’s somewhere, last time somebody took the time to count, about 11 million eligible deer hunters among us.
Being November is also romance season for most deer in the USA, they say, those who count deer for Google, that there are around 30 million whitetail deer bounding about us in this great nation. And, they note that’s about a 100% increase in population over the last century when they stopped to count deer back then.
Now counting deer, and deer hunters, and who voted for who, isn’t necessarily all that strange if you stop and think about it. This whole phenomenon of statistics, counting things and spread sheets and such, is just the world we’ve come to enjoy.
Thanks to computers and legions of geeks abounding, we live in a universe obsessed with exit polls, actuarial tables and tax tables that are somehow designed to answer all of our burning questions that surround us on our daily journey, in life’s conundrum.
Strange ain’t it?
But there’s something deeply more strange that peaks in November’s season of romance. It’s suddenly evidenced by those 11 million dedicated souls who have suddenly become conisouriers of fine urine.
Urine you say?
Strange you say?
Hell yes, it’s very strange! So weird and strange it stinks, but it’s true.
If you’ve been trolling the big box stores lately, and you’ve been paying close attention, you’ve maybe witnessed this strange attraction to urine yourself.
There are isles and store shelves stocked with urine, where supposed deer urine is peddled.
Urine sales are going through the roof!
Yuk you say?
Disgusting you mumble?
Avert the children’s gaze you say?
Glassy eyed deer hunting men and women can be witnessed standing in these big box store isles, actually reading labels of containers of urine!
That’s downright eerily strange!
They’re searching vast supplies, hundreds of gallons of urine, for some kind of edge. Some kind of magic elixir that brings romance starved bucks into their scopes, their arrow and their freezer.
Urine? You say?
Now you older urine aficionados may remember back in the day when some astute con-man, whose marketing genius of a name, that rimed with “tinkle,” came up with the brilliant idea to bottle urine and, overnight, became famously wealthy.
I vividly remember sitting around the big fire in deer camp while we all tried to figure out just how this marketing genius actually captured his urine and managed to put it in these little brown bottles;
“Why you ‘recon he ties a bucket on the deer’s hind end?”
“I’ll bet he makes ‘em drink a lot of cranberry juice and he straps a big zip lock over their …you know.”
“Well, maybe he milks ‘em, or he uses some kind of hose or long tube? But I can’t figure how he get’s ‘em to stand still while he’s a goin’ about it?”
“I’ll bet he still ain’t married neither. Why, my old lady wouldn’t put up with that crap for one solitary nano second. ‘Hit don’t matter how much money I’d throw her way, She would’t put up with that @#$% for one %^&* minute.”
Well, we’ve come a long way baby! Now days, glassy eyed deer hunters, looking for the right smelly edge, have Avogadro’s Number of urine based products to fleece themselves out to their hard earned disposable income.
Thanks to greedy Madison Avenue types, we’ve got aerosol sprays for urine, roll-on sticks like underarm deodorants, burnable urine, and last but not least, bags of urine that supposedly drip for weeks on end.
Urine is big business boys and girls! Who would have thunk it?
Now not all of us have the money to waste on good urine that’s purchased at $10.00 to $15.00 a pop. Wasted good money, just to be splashed on the leaf littered ground, or sprayed in the trees. Imagine the strangeness of the equivalent of throwing handfuls of $10.00 bills into the breeze just to be left to rot.
There are a few ‘do-it-yourselfers’ out there that seek economy when it comes to good urine.
I once spent some time elk hunting in Colorado with a bunch of hard core timber cutters from Bryant Alabama who told the tale of Old Odell, up on Sand Mountain.
Odell lived back in the more remote section of the mountain and he was legendary in those parts for hauling trophy bucks out of the woods every November.
Odell’s secret? Homemade urine! The story went that Odell had, at one time, early in his career, tried his hand as a sheet metal worker. But he soon gave up his apprenticeship and took to making his own corn liquor. One new skill begat a better paying old skill.
Odell also dabbled in urine as a side hustle. Odell kept his pet does in his barn and he devised an elaborate sheet metal catch basin and bottling facility. They said it was pure genius when it comes to design, function and efficiency.
Sand Mountain deer hunters soon beat a well worn path to Odell’s barn door! His urine was said to be positively undiluted,100% pure. Where else could an Alabama deer hunter get pure unadulterated urine and top of the line 100 proof corn liquor in one stop? Odell was a marketing genius, Sand Mountain style.
But sadly, it wasn’t all sweet smelling roses for this DIY Sand Mountain entrepreneur. They say Odell’s wife, Miss Rhonda June, snuck out with his fortune soon after his fame peaked. They said she slipped out in the early morning hours with the trunk of her Escalade crammed full of hundreds of gallons of pure 100% urine. They heard she had headed north to Michigan to open a unique deer urine boutique, intent on fleecing Yankees out of their car factory money.
Like I said, November can get a little strange at times. Something about it reeks!
But we could all use some kind of edge in these strange times.
Best of luck with your urine!
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