Throwback Thursday: The Day Bambi Came To Dinner

The following happened in 1994. I wrote and published this in 2003.

After living in cities for all of our lives, several years ago we moved to a small town on the edge of a native reserve. The town was so small that you could insert any one of those small town jokes here, and they would all work. Seriously though, the population of the local school (K-12) was larger than the whole town.

Anyway, just before we moved there the town got cable. So the previous owners of the house we had bought had simply thrown their roof antennae in the corner of the garden. Yes, satellite dishes did exist at the time, they just didn’t happen to have one.

We made friends with some of the natives, which was unheard of in that town. Town people and reserve people didn’t mix. If you think that bigotry doesn’t exist in Canada, try living next to a reserve.

Anyway, the Indian chief (is that even politically correct anymore?) asked if he could buy the roof antennae from us. The reserve didn’t have cable and his daughter was sick in bed, so he thought it would be nice for her to have something more to watch than hockey night in Canada. Happily we told him that he could just have it. We didn’t want payment for it.

But he wanted to pay. “How about some deer meat?” he asked.

Realizing that it was important to him to offer something for the antennae I agreed to receive some deer meat. It wasn’t the first time people had given me nicely wrapped in butcher paper packages of game meat.

The deal was struck the antennae was removed from our yard and I forgot about the deer meat.

Until one night when my husband was out, there was a knock on my door. The Indian chief stood there.

“I have your deer meat,” he smiled at me.

“That’s great!”

“I’ll just go get it.” He disappeared to the side of the house where his truck was parked. When he came back he had a dead deer on his shoulders.

No neatly wrapped butcher paper deer meat. But a deer, minus the head, skin and guts.

“Where do you want this?”

I stared in shock. “Just on the kitchen table,” I stammered.

My kids watched horrified as he slammed the deer down on the kitchen table. “Don’t say anything,” I muttered to them. “This is a nice gesture.”

“Thank you so much for the deer meat,” I smiled at him. “It’s wonderful.”

He grinned at me, and went out the door. The deal was concluded and he could go watch T.V with his antennae and I could figure out what to do with the body he laid on my table.

As soon as he left there was an immediate roar.

“Mom! There’s a dead animal on our kitchen table!”

“I know.” I said, trying to be grown up about it even though I was feeling as squirmy as them.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I’ll wait till your father gets home.”

“Well, I’m never eating it. I’m never eating at that table again. It’s got legs and everything.”

“It doesn’t have a head or skin.”

“It still looks like Bambi.”

‘No, it’s Rudolph!” A kid chimed in.

“Eeww! Mom, you’re going to make us eat Rudolph!”

“Well where did you think deer meat came from?” I asked.

“Wrapped in saran wrap from the store.”

My husband wasn’t home until after midnight. The whole evening, every time I walked by the kitchen I had to cover my eyes so that I wouldn’t see the dead thing lying there. I don’t like to look at dead things.

“We got a present of deer meat.” I announced to my husband as he came in the door. “Want to see it?”

He had me hold a leg as he tried to hack through it with a cleaver. The deer broke the cleaver. I never thought I would ever hold the leg of a dead animal. Fish I can manage. Defeathered and headless chickens that come wrapped up, aren’t a problem for me. But there’s something different about a deer.

Eventually the deer made it to the butcher, and I was presented with several neatly wrapped butcher paper packages of deer meat. Sure we had to spend money on it. Giving away that antennae was expensive. But at least I had a freezer of good meat, that at least one of my kids refused to eat. No matter how much I disguised it.