What is this? The Sin Bin is The Valley Signal's advice column for people who don't deserve it. The sin bin is the penalty box, where you go when you've screwed up. You write in with the mess you've made of your life, or your neighbor's, and Sully tells you what you already know but you're too soft to admit. No soft problems. No participation trophies. No closure. Every story has a pylon, the useless person standing there while the play moves around them. If you can't spot yours, it's you. Keep it short or get benched, and send it to [email protected].
Dear Sully: I come seeking your years of wisdom and steady hand.
On a recent autumn afternoon, I was having lunch with a friend when I made the tactical mistake of saying the word "hunting" out loud. I thought I was speaking at normal restaurant volume. Apparently I had rung the dinner bell for a nearby stranger who had been quietly circling our conversation like a shark in readers.
Before I knew it, I was getting the full finger-wagging lecture about how hunting is morally bankrupt, barbaric, unnecessary, and probably responsible for every bad thing since dial-up internet.
Now, I am not a monster. I hunt because I like being outside, I like knowing where my food comes from, and I like filling the freezer with something that did not spend its life shrink-wrapped in a warehouse cooler. My friend and I tried to explain this. What followed was a spirited debate, by which I mean an hour of a woman who moved here from somewhere expensive explaining morality to people eating lunch.
The highlight came when she mentioned that she recently left her garage open and accidentally gave a family of bears access to a food source. I gently pointed out that this was not exactly a triumph for wildlife ethics, since food-conditioned bears tend to end up on the wrong side of Idaho Fish and Game.
This did not seem to land.
So, Sully, what are we supposed to do with people who think hunting is Satanic but feeding bears out of the garage is just an adorable whoopsie? How should those of us who hunt, eat what we kill, and try not to turn the neighborhood into a bear buffet handle the lecture circuit when it pulls up to the next table?
