Beer and Rattlesnakes

So…even though I have just begun this blog with the oh-so-crafty name of “A Day in the Life of an Army Wife”  (which I totally bit off my girl Lish’s awesome blog “A Day in the Life of a Rock Star Wife” http://www.adayinthelifeofarockstarwife.wordpress.com) I’m thinking I may have to change the name to something like “A Day in the Life of a Hillbilly Wife”.  Let me explain.

My husband, who I love dearly, has become very “country” since we moved to the south 14 months ago.  In the past 14 months he has begun to drive a pickup truck, listen to country music (and we are talking like…Hank Williams Jr.), hunt for critters like boar and turkey, use words like critter, and….get drunk and shoot at rattlesnakes. I have re-named my husband and from now on he will go by Jim-Bob.

He has this buddy, we’ll call him Country Boy, who lives super far out in the sticks.  He doesn’t hang out with Country Boy often, but when he does it is sure to turn into a weekend long drunk-ass hunting trip.

So Country Boy and Jim-bob decided they were going turkey hunting on a Saturday a few weeks back.  The plan was Jim-Bob was getting up early Saturday morning and meeting Country Boy out in Timbucktoo where he lives.  But on Friday night the plan turned into JB leaving that night so that he didn’t have to get up at the buttcrack of dawn to drive all the way out to Timbucktoo (I’m pretty sure he was just ready to start drinking).  So they humped through the woods in the sweltering heat Saturday morning by noon they were exhausted and their clothes were soaked through with sweat so, they decided to give up and start drinking beer.  Around…7pm I got a call from JB in which he asked me “do you want me to come home, cuz if I drink one more beer I’ll be drunk and won’t be able to drive, so I just want to know if you really want me to come home, cuz I will.”  As far as I could tell the drunk line had already been crossed so I told him I was fine with him staying and getting drunk with Country Boy, I just really really didn’t want him to drink and drive.  He agreed and I went back to painting our sunny room (it’s a really odd room in our house between the kitchen/dining room and back yard, it has big windows and a slider so it’s bright and sunny) and drinking my 6 pack of MGD 64 (The kids stayed the night with friends).

I’m not sure exactly how long but about 2 or 3 hours later Jim-Bob sent me a text that said “I just killed a rattlesnake”  My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach…I already knew without knowing that a really stupid drunken stunt had just gone down.

What happened was Jim Bob and Country Boy were driving (yes, DRIVING, the one thing I asked him NOT to do that night) through the woods after leaving Country Boy’s hunting club and CB spotted a 5 foot long rattlesnake alongside the dirt road they were on.  When he yelled out “Stop! Wanna kill a rattlesnake?” Jim Bob slammed on the brakes and grabbed his shot gun.  He then jumped out of the truck and walked up to the rattlesnake, who was now coiling up and rattling it’s tail, JB stopped about 5-6 feet away and (drunkenly) aimed his shotgun at it.  He pulled the trigger……..and missed.  I swear to you, the man has a guardian angel.  He shot again just as the snake lunged forward and he blew it’s head right off.  The momentum from the snakes lunge landed it right at Jim Bob’s feet.  So, you see I was right about the stupid drunken stunt thing, right?

This hillbilly even has our 8 year old out in the woods shooting rattlesnakes now.  They did a father/son hunting trip this past weekend and ran into a small rattler on a trail.  This kid has been dying to shoot something so when he begged his dad to hand over the gun so he could shoot the snake …he did!  I got another stomach clenching text and luckily everything was ok and everyone one was sober this time.

I just can’t even imagine what the good Lord has in store for me with all these country boys but I’m pretty sure I’m up for it =)