As you know, I have this persona. This thing. This evil in my life. A spawn of hell. My evil twin SINthia. She is everything wrong in my life. She says IT out loud. She is THAT mom, THAT lady, THAT….whatever people in town gossip about. She loves it! She lives without regrets and never gets embarrassed. Oh to live in that kind of freedom. Wouldn’t it be freeing? Too bad the real me can’t live there all the time.

Please tell me by now you’ve met her, laughed at her, found something vaguely familiar, thought about her over a glass of wine and then forgiven me her. If not…you can read about her personal life here. How she masquerades as the red baron here, how she sprung her friend Russell from jail here, how she insists on hillbilly kung fu fighting while shopping here and finally if you want to read her latest escapades on how she aspires to be a recon sniper just…stand by.

We have a badger problem. Not a small one, but a big one. HUGE. In case you don’t know, badger’s dig. That is what they do. The one that has currently dug into our yard like it was Mount Suribachi on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. We’re talking a fortress people.

We just got done paying some folks big bucks to dig up our yard. If I would have known we could have gotten a digger for free…maybe I would be telling a tale of badger training instead of recon sniper training. But, I’m not.

SINthia has always dreamed being a solider. Ever since she didn’t get into the military because of…something…I don’t know what it was. I think maybe it had to do with those charges of transportation of a loaded firearm down in Oklahoma. Or at least THAT was her story. Anyway, she is a freak about soldiers especially snipers. 

She had a habit of maxing out her allowance and the occasional credit card to keep up with this strange fetish. Since we cut up the credit cards, our life has been better, but we are still left with all this military paraphernalia. Excuse me, government issued gear. (She insists on calling it that.) Regardless, she did put it to good use on her latest recon mission. Here’s what she took: standard issue olive drab jungle boots, battle fatigues (complete with ghille suit, boonie hat and camo face paint.) A heavy barreled Remington 700 bolt-action rifle (caliber .308), 4×12 tactical scope (with night vision), flash light, compass, range finder, night vision binoculars, two-way radio, extra ammo, and oh I almost forgot… extra perfume cause badgers stink and she didn’t want anyone thinking that was HER that smelled like that and some substitutions on the camo face paint. Everyone knows ‘mocha java’ gives your lips more of a pout than ‘tree bark bown’ and ‘loam green’ doesn’t say sexy like ‘lusty sage’ does.

In her Alice pack (that’s back pack for you civilians) she opted for a whole barrage of hormone replacement pills, a large bottle of wine and a piece of jerky in case the mission latest longer than expected, reinforcements didn’t show up, or the chopper didn’t make it to the extraction point on time.

She waited until Ben was tucked safely in bed and was sound asleep and belly crawled out to the most currently used den. When she got there she pulled out a roll of 20 pound test fishing line and built a loop her daddy would have been proud of and buried the loop around the hole. After belly crawling back to her sniper hide, she poured her a canteen cup of wine and sets her fishing pole in an spring loaded hook setter, (or loop as it were) and waits.

Now ya’ll might be wondering what fishing for a badger have to do with sniping one? I’m really not sure, except her brother told her how funny prairie dogs cartwheels are when they are caught just below they’re armpits. And ‘derned if they aren’t hard to reel in…fightin’ better than a dat gum master angler walleye…’ So why not try it with a badger? (Did I mention my bi polar friend is pure D redneck–hillbilly?)

Meanwhile…back at the hide. SINthia is feeling a little a woozy from the wine and decides to take a few hormones. Hey, if they can take care of hot flashes, they can probably take care of numb lips too, she muses and pops a few.

A while later she wakes up dazed and confused to rustles in the darkness.

“This is it,” she thinks and checks her scope that is  focused on the hole.

Nothing.

She checks her fishing pole and notices it hasn’t sprung. Her breathing is getting faster and faster trying to calm herself and then she smells it…a musty-dirt smell, with (sniff) pheromones and a touch of…(sniff)…of (sniff)…she wasn’t sure. Where had she smelled than smell before?

Then she heard it again. This time closer. As she tried to look through her foggy night vision she could barely make out…

“Oh God… not my… I’ve shared my yard with you for the last few months…if you think I’m going to share my wine…you have another thing coming.” Then her kung fu instincts took over and she knew at this close range no sniper rifle would help. The fishing pole was useless. It all came down to hand to hand combat…

Deciding the best defense is a good offense, she grabbed the animal by the back of the neck, hurdled the lonely sniper rifle, and ran straight away toward the yard light planning to pummel it to death as soon as it came into focus. Unfortunately, she forgot about the previous loop she had built and unbenounced to her the fishing pole tripped, sucking the line tight around her army boot, leaving her only 15 yards before she was tripped by the tension.

Landing just short of her goal…and the freedom of light. As she fell she heard a squall that sent chills up her spine and reminded her of when Diamonds, the tom cat breed, bred Nasty Pearl, her calico cat, when she was young. (It’s funny what runs through your mind when your in a pickle…) It was then she remembered where she had smelled that smell before…Folks, it was no badger, it was a skunk. I say was, like it was past tense, but it was very much intense and in the present.

She fumbled for her radio…”Red leader…this is bleeding banchee aborting mission…I repeat…bleeding banchee has flown the coop…extraction needed…do you copy? Over!”

She looked up just in time to see the skunk limp off into the bushes and her bedroom light come on. Ben came running out of the house wearing nothing but briefs and cowboy boots and packing a shotgun. 

“What are you doing? What’s on your face? (gagging) Awwwe, man, what’s that smell? How did you manage to get sprayed *gagging*”

“I think I broke my…wenis…I mean my elbow. Ooooohhh, I think I need to go to the emergency room!”

“Are you drunk?”

“No. I just had a sip of wine while waiting for the badger. Then the skunk came and tried to drink the rest and I grabbed him when we were past the point of  shooting and my fishing pole didn’t work…so I knew we were down to mortal combat.”

“Fishing pole?”

(I was fading in and out of conscientiousness.)

“…it was either him or me, Honey. I wanted to make you proud…Could you help me to the truck?”

*Ben was still gagging while I crawled in the back of the truck smelling like a combination of a french whore house, wino and skunk.*

“Honey, do I have to ride back here? This is embarrassing, please…can I at least change?”

“CHANGE! CHANGE WHAT?”

“These camo pants. Don’t they make me look fat?”

And that’s the story of how SINthia, my evil twin, killed the badger.

We found the badger dead the next day.

We are not sure, but surmise, it must have died laughing.

Sis

SINthia

PS. What did I tell ya. You can’t take me anywhere and I get in trouble even if I’m at home. Four tomato baths later Ben let me sleep on the porch, which was mild compared to his reaction to the doctor bill. Turns out Blue Cross and Blue Shield doesn’t cover hospital contamination clean up. Who knew? I’ll make a note of that…