Pulled 'Coon' Sandwich

A few days ago, after work, Jordan got word that he had caught a "coon" in one of the traps he has set up throughout the vineyard. So after work, right as the sun was slowly setting, Jordan whistled to his dogs, pulled a hefty looking gun of some sort (this is not my area of expertise) out of his truck and he, Henry, Kyle and I trudged up through the vineyard. His dogs, Golly and Grumpy, all razzed and in hunting mode, sprinted ahead toward the trap and tore the raccoon from the finger trap before we even got to it. The raccoon put up a good fight but these dogs tore at it like a rag doll until it was done. A strange kind of mood happened to all of us individually- a very subtle change in the air that made everyone a little unsure as to how to carry themselves- about seeing something so incredibly alive and then a moment later, so completely dead.

"Ah this is just a little scrawny coon", said Jordan, looking it up and down, warding off his dogs. "A girl too. Not much meat on this one. Shall we hold off then for a bigger one?" he asked looking at me. Earlier in the week, as we all sat around the picnic table under a tree outside of the warehouse eating lunch, it somehow got out that I "hadn't eaten coon" which, for once, was NOT a sexual inuendo. And apparently Jordan eats coon all the time. So I agreed that if Jordan killed a raccoon and cooked it up, I'd have some, and since then we've been dreaming up the types of coon that could be made. Coon jerky, smoked coon, pulled coon sandwiches...

I'm not totally sure how I feel about actually eating a raccoon. I think the aversion to bugs and animals that eat our garbage and live in our sewage is a completely healthy one. But I guess I agreed.

Anyway, this one was passed up- thrown to the two neighbor dogs going ballistic behind a fence nearby- after cutting the tail off. Which Henry and Jordan de-boned on our picnic table. And the fluffy, boneless, and totally beautiful tail was given to me as some kind of trophy- me, the City Girl by default. I guess because I haven't eaten coon, and haven't skinned an animal, and was the only one of us who was unarmed.

Afterwards, we went back inside and finished cleaning the floors, the last thing we do at the end of the night before going home. As the cleaning process begins, out come the beers, out comes the frisbee, and someone cues up the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever. Which is the nightly ritual. Naturally. This time, our cleaning ritual was enhanced by the yipping grunts of Jordan's dogs rolling around having shameless- and painful looking- sex, in reckless, passionate, post-hunt celebration.