By Christy Rasmussen-Ford

It’s officially hunting season!

Stereotypically, hunting is a man thing. This is because 7 billion years ago, men were the hunters, women were the gatherers, and I was the narrator.

In Forks, we women are the gatherers and the hunters.

By “we women”, I mean everyone but me.

I have no problem with other people hunting, it’s just not for me.

Again, I’m naturally the narrator. Also, hunter orange is not my color. And when you say things like “hunter orange is not my color,”  it is clear that you are not a hunter.

Once upon a time, I did pretend to be a hunter for a short time.

My dad is a hunting guide so of course when I turned hunting age, I took the safety course, bought the clothes, practiced with a gun and learned the art of hurry out to the woods to sit and do nothing for hours.

As it turns out, though I could do all the technicalities of hunting, I fail at the number one rule of hunting; always pull the trigger.

My dad should have seen the writing on the wall that I was going to be a hunting failure.

He took my friend and I out a few years before I was officially a card carrying member. He left us on a ledge only to find us an hour later practicing cheerleading moves.

What can I say? It was almost try-outs.

Thank goodness cheerleaders here don’t have to wear hunter orange. I might have hated cheerleading as well.

Back to my first trip out as an official shooter, things went along as planned for the first few hours.

I sat in the bushes waiting for a deer and attempting to pull off this whole hunting business, all the while worrying that someone from school would see me in hunter orange!

Halfway through the day, I spotted a deer. A real deer! With those horn thingies sticking out of his head!

Woohoo!

It was time to prove myself.

I proved myself alright, proved to myself that hunting was not for me. When it came time to pull the trigger, I could not bring myself to do it. If my dad had been there, I would have been fine with him doing it, but I could not.

Instead of being a good little hunting guide’s daughter and getting my dad’s attention to get the buck, I made a lot of noise and scared the deer away.

“You get a second chance my little friend. Lucky for you, I’m the only woman in Forks who doesn’t hunt. Now be gone before my dad sees you.”

My dad cringes when he hears that story.

He didn’t get a deer that year‚ thanks to me, his failure daughter.

I’m talented at many things (writing nonsense columns especially), but hunting is not one of them.

Feel free to cook up your prized hunting catches for me, but don’t expect me to pull the trigger. I’m not a hunter‚ or a gatherer actually.

I’m just the narrator; wearing a tasteful rust-colored sweater.