Free The Preppers Lament by Ron Foster

enthusiastically shaking the man’s hand.
     
    “Hi there David, nice to see ya buddy. I heard the shot and thought I would come check on you and see what you were firing at.” Mike said before Julie gave her friendly greetings and customary hug for all well-wishers or friends of David’s. .
     
    “No worries buddy, matter of fact I was just about to walk up to your place and come get you. I shot myself a nice deer and I figured that you might possibly be in the mood to help field dress him in trade for half the meat, but we need to talk more about how we are going to divvy it up before we start fleshing it out.” David said stopping a moment before telling him any further details in order to ask him if he wanted some hot coffee on this cold blustery day.
     
    “ Coffee would be great, that is if you already got some made” Mike said before being quickly assured by Julie that it would only take her a minute to make a fresh pot  and then asking the boys if they were coming inside for a visit or staying out in the cold to deal with the deer.
     
    “We are going to go pick up that deer in the woods first Julie and move him closer to the house. He surely should be bled out by now and it won’t take us but a minute to fetch him home. We will come in the house for coffee with you and warm up when we get back before getting started field dressing on him. Come on Mike! Let’s quit fooling around and go get that part of the task out of the way. I need to go over here and get my deer cart out of the shed first though. That tasty deer is laying only about 75 yards away from here close to the stand. Won’t take us more than 10 minutes to go grab it and haul it back.” David said fetching his shotgun and leading Mike to the backyard to unlock and open a 20x14 metal storage shed. Mike slung his rifle over his shoulder and followed along scanning the wood line.
     
    “To be honest with you David, I am very glad you got lucky and got yourself a deer today. I was hoping you were not  just out squirrel hunting and maybe had a bit of something from your hunting efforts I could talk you into to sharing with us. Food is getting mighty tight over at my place and the deer around my place are so skittish and high strung with all the hunters in the woods that I haven’t even seen a clear shot or for that matter a deer in days.  My cold bones have been sitting out on my stand every morning and dusk watching and waiting for nothing.” Mike said forlornly.
     
    “Well then it’s your lucky day my backwoods buddy, that’s a fine of a 6 pointer deer that you will ever see that I managed to shoot this morning. There he is lying over there by the gully. See him?” David said jubilantly as he now let Mike take a turn and pull the two wheeled cart down the forest trail instead of him. David was always good at instigating or conniving to get younger folk to use their youthful muscles and enthusiasm to perform a task regardless whether or not he could easily do it for himself.
     
    It was to him, a sort of southern respect your elders’ thing that he sort of did to have some mischievous fun while playfully cajoling or tricking someone into sharing the harder part of a task that David needed to work on and that he just as soon get out of.
     
    “I take it that Mike you didn’t get much of a chance to prep for hard times as bad as these ones we are going through now” David said cautiously wondering if Mike had prepared for himself and his family much at all.
     
    “Well David you know how it is; new shoes and clothes for kids, low pay etc. Just seems like every time I was planning on making some prepper purchase something would come along and take away all the extra money. Seems pretty much every time I turned around, just simple everyday living or unexpected bills and expenses would pop up and short sheet my bank account.” Mike said wistfully.
     
    “I got some stuff put back for this apocalypse that I might be able to let you