I have always wanted to own a moose head. You know – a stuffed, mounted head of an actual moose. Yes, the kind with antlers.
You might ask why anyone would need a moose head. I would respond that nobody needs a Picasso or a third child, or come to think of it, that other kidney. I remember when I was a kid, from time to time, you would see a television commercial where somebody would come home from a garage sale carrying a moose head and the big joke was how impractical a purchase it had been, because who in their right mind would want to own a moose head?
Me, that’s who.
My wife, oddly enough, does not share my passion for the idea of a gigantic dead animal’s head sticking out of the wall – well, she certainly feels passionately about it, but not in exactly the same way I do.
“I love you more than anything in the world,” she emailed me one day when I’d sent her a notice of a great moose head for sale on eBay, “but if you even think about bringing that thing into the house, I will leave you.”
Then she put the clincher on it.
“And I’ll take the ice cream maker with me.”
That’s playing dirty, if you ask me.
So you can understand that passions ran high in our car last weekend when we passed a yard sale with a giant moose head on display.
My wife tried to pretend that she didn’t see the moose head in the forlorn hope that I, in turn, wouldn’t see it. Foolish, foolish woman. In much the same way that a Jedi Master can sense a disturbance in the Force, I can sense a moose head from a mile away. Lock it away in a lead-lined bank vault, and I will only feel a general sense of unease as I drive by, but put it out on your lawn and I will be drawn to it like a buzzard to a gut-wagon.
“No,” my wife said, sensing the train of my thoughts.
“But…” I started to argue.
“No.”
“Yeah, but what about…”
“No.”
“But it’s a moose head!!” There was no denying this. Surely my wife would have to see the logic of this argument.
“Just drive,” she replied with an almost vindictive serenity. (She’s going to be a good mother.)
As we drove away, it is possible that I mumbled something indiscrete.
My wife, who can hear me drink from a milk carton three rooms away fixed me with a stony glare.
“You are not going to buy a moose head!” she told me, starting to lose her sense of humor. “Those people” – she indicated the people holding the yard sale – “don’t even want it anymore!”
Surprisingly, I had a logical counter-argument to this – well, logical for me.
“First of all, I refuse to believe that the man wants to get rid of it; I guarantee that if he is getting rid of it, his wife is using some sort of blackmail.” I paused to see my wife’s reaction. She smiled ruefully, acknowledging that there was probably some truth in this.
“Secondly,” I continued quickly, before my wife could change the subject, “I submit that he is selling that beautiful moose head to make room for a bigger moose head!”
“That’s a scary idea,” my wife said with a shudder.
“Do you know why that scares you?” I asked.
“I’m sure you’re about to tell me,” she said with a long-suffering sigh.
“You just don’t like that idea because it proves my point.”
“And what point is that?” my wife asked.
“That this moose head is a perfect starter head!” I said with a satisfied nod of my head. I may have even added the word, “HA!”
We drove in silence for another mile or so, while my wife recovered from this merciless onslaught of syllogistic logic. Eventually though, she did.
“Even if we wanted to buy it – WHICH WE DON’T !!” - she stabbed a finger at me before I could get my hopes up – “we don’t have anywhere we could put it.”
“Sure we do!”
“Where?”
“Um…” I did some quick thinking. “In the bedroom!”
“Not,” my wife said in a voice filled with menace, “if you ever want me to feel romantic there ever again. If I were you, I wouldn’t squander my wife’s reserves of generosity that way.”
I’ll give it to her – that was a good argument.
“Okay, then… um… how about…” I thought quickly. “We could put it in the nursery!”
My wife, obviously imagining our impending baby waking up from a peaceful nap to look into the huge, dead eyes of a moose and being scarred for life, decided on a non-psychological approach.
“There’s no room in there,” she said.
“Of course there is,” I scoffed.
She stared at me skeptically, mentally inventorying all the new baby crap we had stuffed into the nursery over the past few weeks.
“Well, we’d have to get rid of some stuff,” I said defensively.
“Like what?” she asked me in a voice as cold as the glass eyes in a stuffed moose head.
“Well, okay, the crib, for one thing,” I admitted.
My wife glared at me, then slumped back silently in her seat for the rest of the drive to the grocery store.
I hope she has this baby soon, because it’s making her grumpy.
