On deadly violence as a form of gratitude

Note: This post was originally part of the previous one but I reconsidered and decided they should be two different posts...and then added a response to a comment plus a couple of Aggie huntin' jokes...

I have said nothing to this point for awhile about Duane and Desiree Liong, whose spare bedroom I still inhabit. That is because there are no words adequate to describe those two incredible individuals, whose graciousness and generosity are apparently as limitless as Christ's own -- precisely, I believe, because they have, as Christians are called to do, allowed themselves to become channels through which Jesus pours out upon me daily his very own graciousness and generosity.

But while it is true that I can't find words to describe my gratitude, my parents recently found an effectively concrete way to express some of theirs. I drove up to West Virginia to spend Thanksgiving with my parents, Thanksgiving this year being a Dessie holiday with respect to the kids, and my mother was thrilled and delighted to find out I was coming...but she had a prayer request to make upon hearing the good news. This request was that she would bag her deer on the first day of deer season without wasting any time, since deer season opened the week of Thanksgiving and she wanted as much time as possible to spend with me.

We interrupt this anecdote to deal (cheerfully, I hasten to add) with an inevitable objection from the highly valued liberal bloc amongst my readers: For you urban types who think there's something perverse about the idea of praying for success in killing a deer...um, who exactly do you think created lions and tigers and sharks and all those other predators? When my niece watches wild-animal-kingdom shows, she cheers for the predators -- when the wildebeest or gazelle or whatever gets caught up to and dragged down she gives the cheetah a pump fist and a hearty "Yes!" -- and I'd be mighty curious to hear anybody give a rational explanation of what's wrong with such an allegiance. Though naturally y'all are welcome to cheer for the wildebeest if you prefer. (Los-ahs! Oh, oops, did I say that out loud? My bad.)

God, not being an urban Democrat [evil editorial chuckle], granted my mom's prayer with dispatch, as she nailed a nice fat doe at dawn on the first day of deer season, which was the day I was due to drive out from Houston. Amused by this, I told Duane about it, and his eyes widened. "Deer meat? Your parents have deer meat?"

"Sure."

He sighs wistfully. "Oh, man, it's been so long since I got to eat any deer meat. Do you think your parents might be willing to send a little back with you?"

Well, when my parents found out that Duane and Desiree liked venison, their response was instant and emphatic: "How much can you carry back with you? How much room does their freezer have?" After all, as my mother said a few days later as they loaded up their biggest ice chest, "Take those two as much of that deer meat as you can make fit in there; I can always just go shoot another one for us."

But Duane's joy was short-lived: I didn't get back until very late on the night before Desiree and the twins left to go see grandparents in the Phillipines for two months. For lunch the next day, while I was gone to work, the Liongs had some of the venison steak -- and Desiree then informed Duane, apparently, that he was not to eat any more of that venison until she got back from the Philippines and could get her fair share of it. A co-worker suggested the other day that, considering how much I brought back with me, Duane could probably get away with sneaking a steak or two out of there without getting caught; but Duane mournfully (mock-mournfully, you understand) said, "I think she counted them."

So what with Duane and me both sitting around the house all day missing our families, chez Liong is not exactly Party Central at the moment. I think we'll have six Level 70 World of Warcraft characters apiece by the time Desiree gets back. (Actually, I won't, because I am in the middle of an apartment search, since Duane's parents are coming back with Desiree in February and will need the spare bedroom, and so I don't really have much spare time. But I think last Sunday Duane started the day by creating a brand new WoW character and ended it with the character at Level 26; so he's genuinely a threat to set records.)

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Now, as I said, this post was originally part of the previous one; and so I am bringing over with it Jim's comment:

Yo dude,

Thoughts and prayers for you and your family.

Oh, and for the record, liberals hunt deer too. In fact, a real good environmentalist would encourage deer hunting. After all, the conservative anti-environmentalists got rid of all the rest of the predators that keep the deer population in check. :)

Jim, thanks for the prayers. And you will notice that I very carefully specified urban liberals. Believe me, growing up in "Little Dixie" in southeastern Oklahoma, where (at least in my youth) even the Republicans were registered as Democrats because the only way to influence who got into office was to vote in the Democratic primary, I know that a Democratic voting card is not nearly enough to keep you and your kids from calling in sick to work and school for the whole first week of deer season. [chuckling] In fact when, as inevitably happened every year, some moron shot his friend because he thought he was shooting a deer, odds were pretty good the moron was a rich Republican coming down from the city to play cowboy.

Having mentioned the subject, I can't resist telling one of my favorite Aggie jokes, which I've probably told before but it never gets old. (Stream-of-consciousness reference to Rodney Dangerfield: I like his line that runs, "I told my wife that I'm like wine -- I get better with age. So she locked me in the cellar.")

These two Aggies go out huntin', and, bein' Aggies, one of 'em shoots the other one. As soon as he realizes his mistake, he rushes his friend to the emergency room, and then paces back and forth in the waiting room, until the doctor walks out, looking grim. The Aggie rushes up to the doctor: "Doc, Doc, tell me, is my buddy gonna make it?"

The doctor slowly pulls off first one glove, then the other, obviously weighing his words. Finally he speaks: "Well, let me put it this way...he'd've had a helluva lot better chance if you hadn't slit his throat and gutted him."

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And since we're telling Aggie hunting jokes (or at least I am), here's one more for the road:

These two Aggies go out huntin', and, bein' Aggies, one of 'em shoots the other one. As soon as he realizes his mistake (I promise this is a different joke, by the way), he calls 9-1-1 on his cell phone.

AGGIE: Please, please, you gotta help me, I shot my friend by mistake and I don't know what to do.

OPERATOR: Calm down, sir. First I need to know, is your friend dead?

AGGIE: I think he is, I think I killed him, oh God oh God oh God...

OPERATOR: Sir, sir, please calm down. Before we do anything else, let's make sure your friend really is dead.

AGGIE: Hold on a sec... [gunshot] ... Okay, what now?