If you’ve been with me for a minute or two, you’ll know my husband is quite outdoorsy. 

And that I am not. 

I don’t know how, but it works.  

Maybe because he’s been in the woods for a week and I’ve happily watched Robocop for and all of Presumed Innocent. 

Robocop is the ’80s version, not the 2014 version. 

And Presumed Innocent is the 2024 version, not the ’90s version. 

The ’90s version is better.  

The book tops both.  

Anyway, my husband is a skilled outdoorsman.  

Well, mostly. 

Last year, he was in the Arctic Circle with three hunting buddies. 

Yeah. The actual middle of nowhere. 

Abruptly, a random guy landed his airplane right next to their campsite. 

My husband satellite-texted me, telling me all about their new buddy. 

“Hey,” I texted back. “You’re not at all suspicious that this guy landed his plane right next to the only other humans in the Arctic?” 

“No,” he texted back. 

“That guy is 100 percent there to kill you,” I texted back. Because I’ve seen Hush and Misery and Deliverance and I know nothing good comes from arbitrary encounters with other humans in wild places.  

But aside from trusting the Arctic serial killer — I think he gave him his phone number — my husband is a skilled outdoorsman. 

So skilled, in fact, that he’s been gone for a week, yet his outdoorsy habits are right here, sitting in my lap. 

I rolled into the house Monday afternoon, a few hours after he left for his outdoors retreat. 

Wait. You want to know what he’s doing? How can that possibly be more interesting than comparing Presumed Innocent 1987, Presumed Innocent 1990, and Presumed Innocent 2024? 

Also, you’ll never believe what he’s doing. 

But here goes. 

He’s at his family’s hunting cabin — yeah, the one that turns my hair red — with his dad and a bunch of guys who voluntarily went there to spend the weekend. I mean, with bells on.  

And it really is a bunch of guys. If they were coyotes, they’d be a pack. If they were crows, they’d be a murder. 

I know. I don’t get it either. 

I rolled into the house on Monday to find a deer skull sitting on top of the wine rack. 

So that’s the kind of house I live in now. 

“I’m just trying to live like Henry,” my husband said, referring to a picture I once sent him of a Tudor palace wall bedecked with antler upon antler upon antler. 

Considering Henry VIII divorced one wife before shipping her off to a convent, divorced another while stipulating she could never remarry, and beheaded two others, I’m kind of sleeping with one eye open. 

The thing is, the antlers look good on top of the wine rack.  

I have this painting of a quaint little house strewn with Fourth of July bunting. It hangs above the wine rack. The antlers curl up to frame the painting in a way that’s, well, charming. 

I know. I can’t believe I said that either. I just gave myself a little shake, went and looked at the antlers and painting again. 

Yep. Still looks cabin cozy. 

I think — I think I’ve been living with an outdoorsman for maybe five minutes too long. 

What’s worse is that I told my husband I thought the antlers should stay. 

“Don’t mount them,” I said. “Leave them there. They look cool.” 

For the record, he did not think I looked cool when I wore a Star Trek uniform to M. Night Shyamalan’s Halloween party. 

Another night this week, I arrived home hangry and dreaming of a peanut butter smoothie. 

When I opened the fridge to retrieve my almond milk — yeah, if I’m sitting on the sofa through nine episodes of Presumed Innocent and all of Robocop, I have to eat as healthy as possible — a cascade of red juices flowed from the top shelf. 

Meat — could be venison, could be moose, you never know around here — sat sealed in plastic, defrosting on the top shelf. 

Should I have placed it in a bowl long before it was defrosted enough to run rivulets of red over three shelves and into the vegetable crisper? 

No. Just stop. That is not my job. I have already given the antlers permission to squat on the wine rack for, like, ever.  

Besides. It was my job to clean up the mess. To sop up puddles of meat juice from the shelves, from the crisper. To wipe it from the yogurt container and Jell-O cups. To wrestle my dog, determined to get to those juices before my wad of paper towels. 

If there is anything worse than having a lake of meat juice in your fridge, it’s having a beagle in your fridge.  

That beagle, by the way, caught a scent when we stayed at the cabin over Christmas. 

It turned out to be a deer leg. Fur and all.  

He picked it up.  

“No,” I said.  

 He dropped it, diving four feet to his right for a decaying bird wing. 

I pulled it from his mouth, dead bird goo sticking to my hands and jeans. 

My dog picked up the deer leg again. 

And buried it next to the cabin. 

Well. At least he didn’t put it on the wine rack.