My apologies to my vegan friends.

It's that time of year again. The air is cool. The leaves are falling. Moms are making soup for dinner.

And every catalog known to man is in my mailbox.

I must admit that I enjoy looking at catalogs. My grandmother always had a Sears Roebuck and a Spiegel in her home. We would sit around together looking at bedspreads and drapes from Sears. Sometimes Granny would order some curtains or a pair of pants.

She never ordered anything from Spiegel. She lived in a small town where there was one red light, two drug stores owned by two families, and one place to get barbecue. I had no idea where Spiegel was, but I guessed it was in New York City, on the same street as the Macy's parade. The clothing in Spiegel looked fancy and even odd. Still, Granny bought their catalog every year and we would look and dream.

These days you can order everything by catalog or online. I order online for some things, but I still love to sit on the sofa and flip through a real, paper catalog- the kind that comes from dead trees. So, when Fall arrives and all the catalogs are spilling out of my mailbox, I am in heaven.

Until the other day.

All year I receive mailings from normal stores like Pottery Barn and Chadwick's. This is the season when all of the unique ones arrive, just in time for Christmas shopping. Some of the catalogs are interesting and others are just downright disturbing.

I got a hunting catalog. This particular catalog is a lot like a dark comedy; it starts out perfectly normal and benign and ends up completely dark and sinister. The first few pages are full of lovely adds of fluffy slippers. How innocent and charming. Next, we turn to women dressed in warm, fuzzy sweaters and flannel pajamas. Then, we see male models in completely normal winter attire. For a moment, I thought I was browsing LL Bean.

Then, wham! Jim Carey morphs from the friendly cable guy to the creepy stalker who won't leave me alone. I turn the page and see hunting gear- not the normal camouflage print and bright orange.

Let's digress. I was born and raised in Georgia. My daddy hunted. His daddy hunted. My mama's daddy hunted. His daddy hunted. Every male in my family hunted. But, they were like most normal men who hunt- they got their gear from Sears or Wal-mart. They stayed in the woods for days, no baths and no gadgets. They ate vienna sausages and Spam, and drank coffee and sweet tea from a Thermos. They were, ya know, normal.

My husband doesn't hunt. He isn't against it. He just isn't interested. I am sure if we were stranded in the woods with no food to speak of and all the berries and vegetation were either poisonous or dead, that my husband could kill him a barr (bear). This would be out of necessity, not for sport. (His mother would be proud.)

Which leads me back to the catalog. It was addressed to me or current resident- not to my husband. That alone is almost as disturbing as the merchandise.

This catalog offers hunters things like badger-skin caps, GPS devices (in case you get lost in the woods, you loser!), and even portable heaters for the real sissies out there. There are fancy radios and flashlights, special comfy sleeping bags, and even stuff for your dawg. There are normal items like knives and guns. What's wrong with that phrase? The list could go on and on...

As disturbing and disgusted as I was, I flipped to the very last pages and laughed out loud. The last pages of this yuppy hunter catalog advertise hams and roasts! I guess after you have donned expensive gear, gotten lost in the woods, frozen nearly to death, and driven home empty handed in your Japanese SUV, you have to just pick up the phone and order your meat. You can even purchase gourmet cheese. (I have never seen my daddy eat his venison sausage with a slice of smoked cheddar.)

I considered writing the company to express my mixture of disgust and amusement, but I thought correspondence might encourage more disturbing mail-outs. And, I just don't want to take any chances. For now, I'll throw it out (now that I've posted on it) and lock my doors at night. You never know when Jim Carey may show up in a camouflage jumpsuit and night vision goggles.

PS. I went nuts with the italics (and parenthesis.) Consider me a rebel.