Part 3/3

Somewhere about 2-3AM, as I am reading a book, there is a loud pounding at the door of the trailer. The pounding that is only one thing: a cop. He yells to open the door. At this point I've not had any food in 24 hours, no sleep in 36 hours and all my filters are off. One of the things I am reading in the news is that the cops up here are not serious about COVID, not getting the vaccine, and in general are asshole Idaho cops. I open the curtains, turn on the interior light and prepare to give him a bunch of shit. I inhale to give the cop a piece of my mind, when I see him look at me, then look at the note on the door with a number to call verifying that I am a patient and have permission to park, then he looks at me again (and I guess he sees the IV bag). He shoots me a highly disgusted angry look then he storms off. Like stomping his feet like a toddler storms off. This is probably a good thing because I don't want them inside the trailer, don't want them to find my sidearm, and at this point in the treatment cycle the only defense I have is a news story about a cop killing a dying man at the hospital. After he left, I IMMEDIATELY unload the sidearm, put the ammunition in one drawer and hide the pistol in another drawer. If anything is true about cops it is that they are all shit humans; being a piece of shit with psychotic tendencies and low IQ is now a part of the job description. Any decent person becoming a cop eventually either turns to vermin and nightstick wielding garbage or runs the fuck away from the profession. Cops hate it when you threaten their aura of authority. I expect this guy to be back, fortunately over the next few days, no cops, no problems. I did report the incident to the hospital as there are video cameras everywhere. They asked if I wanted to complain to the PD, I said, maybe a bit too loud, "FUCKING HELL NO!" I have out of state license plates, there is no fucking hell of a way I am putting myself on their radar; I'll get shot 6 times in the back as a suicide, then have weed and heroin sprinkled on my corpse as they scream HE HAD A GUN on the news for the next six months. I may be dying but I want to kick around and be a pain in the ass for at least a few more years.

Speaking of being a pain in the ass, I now qualify for disability and have a work restriction on file. So not only am I suckling the government nipple for very expensive health care, I now get to fuck up the Social Security fund. Eat shit, kids.

I recover from treatment, get all paperwork in order, thank the docs and nurses, got my booster shot and flu shot, and prepared to leave. The gun store was what you would expect from a deep Red State 'Murica store. At least this one did not have Nazi gear on display. But hey hey hey! They had ammo in stock, which is something I cannot say about back home. The camping and survivalist rations were hilariously terrible. I mentioned that I was buying 60 days of food at Costco, the stuff that they sell in 5 and 10 gallon seal-able plastic jugs, and he and I shared a bit of a laugh over people willingly eating MRE's. I had serious expectations walking into the place, I'm glad to report that at least this one gun shore is not full Treason. Since I was not feeling like absolute shit, I even asked for a coffee shop not run by a trust fund kid or silicon Valley start up, which generated laughs from everyone in the building and a good recommendation. (The coffee was average but reasonably priced) Next stop was a Costco, where I was the only customer wearing a mask. Stocked up on Mormon Armageddon vittles and some winter gear. Then, heading home. Fortunately there were no incidents, and I barely missed a snow storm on the way back.

I get home, drive to the pole barn I keep the truck and trailer under, and step out of the vehicle. As soon as my feet hit the ground, every fibre of the lizard hind brain kicks in, all my hair stands up on end and my heart starts racing. I AM BEING WATCHED. If you have never been off a paved road, you may not understand how this feels and how your brain reacts. It's an interesting experience when your brain understands you are now in the food chain and one wrong move and you are dinner for something meaner and hungrier than you. I look carefully at the ground; wolf prints. Lots and lots of prints. Old ones, though, and I am used to seeing evidence of wolves on the property. The last time I was at the hospital for 3 days, the wolf pack slept in my patio area. Slowly, I start scanning the grounds. Nothing looks like it got under the house, the porch is creature free, no human evidence, the doors and windows are all closed and locked. I make sure I have my sidearm, loaded, and start to walk slowly around the house and pole barn. Then I saw it out of the corner of my eye. Bears. Two of them, hiding in the treeline watching me some 300 meters or so away. These are the first bears I've seen on my property since I've been up here; winter will be interesting. The thing about bears is that they do not like being around people unless there is food around. Hunger always wins over danger, the way to deal with bears is no trash, no food, nothing edible, no hunting scraps, don't clean a kill anywhere near the house, leave nothing that will make a hungry animal brave. If you have a game cleaning table, keep it at the treeline as far away from your buildings as possible if you don't have access to enough water to scrub the equipment clean. I have a room in the house I made about as air-tight as you can get to store my food in, I have a pit that I burn everything that I generate trash-wise. I also use this pit as a latrine just to poison the potential food source. The food room window is foam sealed, and the door has an air-tight gasket. I also store any packaging that I don't feel like burning in this room until I am ready to do a burn. I live close enough to some of the bad wildfires this summer, so my guess is that the bigger animals are on the move and the house is in a 10 acre clearing that occasionally is host to mule deer and a moose or two. This winter I'll have to watch to make sure that any dead animals are taken care of so I don't attract the big predators. I am also happy that the dark solar panels on the house were clean and generating power; nothing inside the house looks like it froze. When real winter starts I have a pellet stove and a pellet press that I learned how to use this summer, so the stove keeps me warm, cooks my food and makes coffee. A ton of pellets is cheap and lasts several weeks when you are warming up a 700sqare foot well insulated house. I don't fuck with Bears, at all, and neither should you. I sat down and started writing an bear mitigation plan just in case they hang around.

Boise is still a shit hole of a city filled with mostly garbage people. Now, it is attracting the MAGA crowd and becoming even more National Socialist that it was before. Meth and Covid are running rampant in the place, so here is hoping some of the really bad people meet their Karma. Looking at home and rental prices in the area? Wow this market is stupid. And if you are spending 500K for a house in fucking Idaho you are functionally stupid; even for remote work spending 400K and more for a house in fucking Boise is madness. Then again, if we can get 100,000 not-conservatives to move to Idaho those folks will change the dynamics of the electoral make up and maybe the dems can get two more senators, after they get a backbone. And pigs will fly on unicorns shitting rainbows. Like everywhere in this part of the country, there are help wanted signs everywhere. The hospital has a giant MINIMUM WAGE $16/Hr sign in the lobby at a job kiosk. Every fast food place looked closed at 9PM. Digging in behind the facades, you see signs with shortened hours, Out of stock signs everywhere, Help wanted, Now Hiring, No drug test needed! Closed early due to no employees. I did see a few "Nobody wants to work" signs as well. Add on a massive housing shortage, housing costs doubling since the pandemic started, and all the expensive cars rolling around. Also lots and lots of the big 100K RV's parked around town. Since I used to live in such a place myself, I saw a couple of "camping" areas that were obviously make-shift homeless camps. The big money in town... Where is all that money coming from? The city of trucks and 4x4's is now a city of Beemers, Teslas and Range Rovers. Are there really that many people from the coast with that much cash moving inland? And if so, if you could stop at Idaho that would be nice cause I don't want you fucking up my neighborhood. If anyone here is in Idaho, get involved in politics a decade ago cause you are losing your state. And vote against anyone for any office that cannot prove they have been in state for at least 15 years.