I think my wife got tired of me whining about not being able to go turkey hunting. Last week, my 22-year-old F-250 wouldn’t start. I thought I’d traced the problem to a faulty neutral safety switch, which I mistakenly believed I could fix myself. Long story short, I did get it to run, finally, but I did something to the transmission in the process. You know there’s a problem when you shift it into P, and it begins driving backward.
I know when to admit defeat, though, so I shifted it into Neutral, or what should have been Neutral, at least, and drove it to a mechanic’s shop.
Unfortunately, though, the repair is probably going to take a while. A few weeks ago, that wouldn’t have been a big deal, but it’s turkey season now. How was I going to get up to Newcastle to hunt turkeys if I didn’t have a truck? My wife made it abundantly clear that her shiny, fancy 4Runner was off-limits for a turkey hunt.
So I put Plan B into action. I figured I’d get her to cave and let me take her rig hunting if I started practicing my turkey calling in the house again. I mentioned last week that I had pretty much driven the entire family insane with my calling practice. The fact that I’d gotten good enough with the call, combined with my wife’s homicidal glares, made me stop for a while. But I explained that if I can’t go hunting, I might as well do some more practicing. I thought she’d just throw me her keys, but she went one better. She drove me to the Kia dealership in Cheyenne, where there was a 2015 Ram 2500 for a good price, and she bought it for me.
I may not call in any turkeys this spring, but that calling practice has already had great results. Now I need to head for the hills and let the nerves I frayed with all that calling get some rest.
