#28 - A Coat of Vermin
Yesterday, on my way home from work, I stopped in town to do some more Christmas shopping. Quite unlike normal shopping, that. Predicated on the joy of giving, I find it a mix of holiday spirit, a sense of duty and, as the big day approaches, straight out urgency as I rush pell-mell from store to store searching for gifts to give the most important people in my life. Mostly, it’s rather fun, especially once I’ve crossed off the starred names on my list and start looking for silly stuff. That’s when I get a little punchy.
With me, punchiness is a kind of inebriation that gives me license to be just as ridiculous as I want, and that is when I headed for the bargain-basement to look for stocking stuffers and unexpected odd items like little jars of artichoke hearts and lumpfish caviar.
Most everything there is affordable . . . and the hilarity is free. Coming to this place I can turn the tables. Now the trick is to find the person on my list who best fits the gift, instead of the other way around - coffee mugs with printed messages, balsam pillows, clever jar openers, pallets of assorted canned nuts, jumper cables and windshield scrapers, children's caned chairs and little scenes in a globe with swirling snow storms - something for anyone and everyone.
Thus, in this punchy mood, I was suddenly aware I was stroking a $1,900 white fox-fur coat! (You never know what you might find in that place.) I looked at the tag with amazement and then at my hands with relief - they weren't as dirty as usual. I had no trouble of course, matching that coat with a certain person on my list, but this bargain-basement surprise had such a flabbergasting effect on my punchiness that I quite instantly got serious again.
My, my, my, my, my, what a handsome fur coat it was, but my withered wallet was wholly unequal to the impulse taking shape. I'm afraid I climbed back up to street level without the coat and left the merchants of Main Street in a twinkling of little white lights and drove home in a now rather furry frame of mind.
Then again that same evening, I found myself climbing another set of steps leading to a party for fellow Christmasers. Other merry friends were arriving as well. Up the icy steps we stepped, and as I groped for a handhold, I grabbed at the coat ascending ahead of me. What should my hand fasten its grip upon, but a tail, a tail tail, a real one.
That’s strange, I thought. Then again, I’d had fur things on my mind only a short while before. I let the tail pull me through the front door, and only then did I noticed the coat had ears on the back too. What an odd fur coat! The more I looked, the more I realized this was no ordinary fur coat. It was dark colored and appeared to be made of many different kinds of fur. "What species of fur coat IS that?" I asked the man wearing it.
"Vermin,” was his reply. "Vermin. I caught them all raiding my henhouse, trying to steal my chickens. Each and every one was up to no good, so I decided to put them to GOOD use." The coyote on the back, with the tail and the ears, was the most recognizable. Keeping him company were several raccoons, a skunk under the arms and a feral cat. There were bits and scraps of a bear added around the hood, he told me, and a weasel. On the whole, it was some coat! "Quite a bargain,” he bragged, “Didn't cost anything much. Even had my wife make the lining." I was impressed.
A fur coat made with the pelts of various varmints is something I don’t think anyone’s likely to find on a normal shopping trip, especially these days. I think coyotes and raccoons, skunks and weasels and the rest had better behave themselves. And as for those bargain basement fur coats – don’t think I’ll be seeing those again. Wasn’t such a good a deal anyhow . . . for me or the foxes involved.