Tis the Season for Sexy Witches, First Dates and Doe-in-Heat Pee

Ever snorted a nose-full of Tink's 69 clear up into your sinuses? I haven't either, but I watched my wife do it on our very first date. Perhaps she should've learned from that incident, since it really set the stage for many things to come. But I was lucky. Realistically speaking, most girls wouldn't have given me a second date.

See, I wasn't exactly spilling over with charm or courtship experience in those days. I was a little over 5 feet tall, 100 pounds, with a chili-bowl haircut and shiny braces my first two years of high school. I wasn't into sports or parties. I hunted, fished, mowed grass and shoveled horse manure.

But between my sophomore and junior years, I hit a growth spurt. Suddenly I grew four inches taller and bulked up to a cool 130 pounds. The braces came off, and I got my driver's license. I gained a reputation for saying clever things, although not always at the appropriate time. Next thing you know, I had myself a date to the Halloween Dance.

Thing about that dance, though, it was on Halloween. And Halloween is a mighty fine time to be sitting in a deer stand. And so I hunted and then showed up late to the dance, dressed as an un-bathed deer hunter, complete with face paint and some old-school Wall's bibs in the original Realtree pattern.

Michelle was dressed as a sexy witch. Such a witch is preferable to the fat variety with warts.

Well of course I wanted to impress her. So I invited her out to the parking lot with me and the boys to look at my climbing stand. The Sexy Witch, scantily clothed as she was, got chilly, so I unlocked the cab of my truck and handed her my coat. She batted her eyes, smiled a light smile and said, Thanks.

I stood there for a minute, contemplating a response. She's wearing my coat. And talking to me.

They say the male mind can just turn to mush in the presence of a pretty girl, and it'll dang sure do it in the presence of a sexy witch. See, I don't recall why I pulled a half-full bottle of Tink's 69 Doe-in-Rut Buck Lure from my console. Maybe my buddy Seymore was asking about the rut. Or maybe I just figured this was the next logical step in mine and Michelle's courtship.

Regardless, I unscrewed the lid from the little amber glass bottle, turned it to Michelle and said, Smell that right there and tell me it don't stink.

I'll admit, I stole that line from Foxworthy.

Michelle leaned toward me at precisely the same moment I thrust the Tink's toward her. Maybe she was trying to get close to me. You know, hint, hint. Or maybe she just really wanted to smell Tink Nathan's autumn brew. Regardless, I misjudged the distance between her face and my outstretched arm, and the open bottle hit her squarely in the nose as her head was still under forward momentum. The deer piss had nowhere to go except straight up her nostrils.

Her reaction was immediate and visceral, similar, I imagine, to spraying a cat in the face with brake fluid. No one said much. Seymore kind of grunted a noise that made no real impact, but I'm sure was a sound of disapproval. I mostly just seized up, a trickle of dark, pungent deer urine rolling off my knuckle. The Sexy Witch was blowing her nose right there onto the parking lot and gagging in a decidedly un-sexy fashion.

I made it up to her, though. Next night, I took her out to see Bats, with Lou Diamond Phillips. Bad. Ass. And we've been married for a good while since then.

I look forward to this time of year, every year. I see those bucks chasing those does, acting stupid, and I can relate. Been there, boys.

Happy Halloween.