I sit silently in my self-built blind, made of mud and twigs; the forest is silent save for the gentle click of the rain on tree leaves. This isn’t my first time spending the night in Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in an attempt to spy the legendary bigfoot. It is night like this, when the moon is full and my heart sings for discovery, that I realize I should have gone to trade school like my father suggested.
I am 45 years-old, unwed, no children, and a laughing stock among my relative because thirty years ago I saw something outside my cabin I could not explain. In hindsight, it was most likely that serial killer they never caught. But instead, I convinced myself to abandon society in pursuit of the North American Yeti.
I have dug through countless piles of suspected Sasquatch shit only to discover it is the crap of a bear or a wolf. I carry with my an obvious odor of scat that will never wash away and if a child doesn’t point & laugh at me, then he will hide in fright.
The mystery that is bigger than the beast himself is how the group of Squatchers I hang out with all managed to shoot themselves in the foot with their hunting rifles on the same camping trip.
I have set up hundreds of night-vision trap cameras in these woods and the only thing I have ever captured is the haunting reflection of my own aged face in the darkness. When I bark Sasquatch calls into the night the only response I get is my echoing loneliness.
Honestly, this isn’t about if Bigfoot does or does not exist. This is about the fact that I could have been a great baker or helped the needy but instead I pick, bag and tag random hairs that always turn out to be dog hairs. Always.
I should just turn this bear mace gun on myself and pull the trigger.
