Well,…… the draw results are out. I get both excited and nervous this time each year. If I DON’T draw, then I can continue muttering obscenities under my breath about how IDFG is clearly involved in a conspiracy against me. If I DO draw, then I have to avoid the aforementioned crazy talk AND I have to get serious about getting in shape. Neither of these sacrifices is an easy one for me.

The notion of giving up pizza, marshmallows, ice-cream, Ho-Ho’s, and all the other many things that bring me such joy is quite literally painful. My white, puffy body resembles very much my beloved marshmellows we previously discussed. I suppose that’s only natural considering how many I ingest during the spring and early summer months on camping trips with the family.

I blame the family of course. My two little kids enjoy setting marshmallows ablaze, but can only be relied on to eat one or two each. While they may only EAT a couple each, they certainly like to COOK more than that. That only leaves one man capable of dealing with surplus marshmallows of course. Do you know how many are in each bag? I’ll save you the task of counting them…the answer is about 2,578 per bag. I may be off by one or two, but it’s close. I digress however.

The point is, a “successful” controlled hunt application suddenly and unexpectedly forces a guy into taking stock of his physical conditioning. Hunting season is no longer a vague idea that’s still months away. A controlled hunt tag is like someone thrust some sort of ticking, fat-bomb into your hands that will go off on opening morning of your hunt unless you disarm it. The “disarming” part of course, consists of me running, biking, and hiking the hills surrounding my Boise neighborhood while mostly eating…..this next part is bad……vegetables.

My wife tells me I should “maintain” my level of fitness and stop fattening up like a hibernating bear every year. I tell her to keep quiet or I’ll shop myself around to the many women that would kill for a shot at me. She seems surprisingly unfazed by this threat.

As you might have surmised by the downtrodden nature of this post, I have been “successful”
in applying for a controlled hunt elk tag here in Idaho. I was grazing contently on M&Ms when I read the news on IDFG’s web-site. With tears cascading down my face I called my buddy Steve a couple of offices down, to tell him to come get the candy-coated chocolate delights. As quickly as he could waddle down the hall, he was at my door. He knew right away.

“Drew a tag huh” he asked.

“Yeah” I softly responded.

“Tough break buddy”

With empathy that only another fatty can understand, he wrapped his sausage-like fingers around my bowl of M&Ms and disappeared in a tornado of stretched out Dockers and wheezing noises. Lucky jerk.