The first time I met Bigfoot, I was out in the woods. So cliche, right? But that's the truth. I'd heard of Bigfoot before, seen a few blurry videos, bought every DVD set of Harry and the Hendersons and wept at their beauty...you know, the usual for a 34 year-old bachelor living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I didn't expect to run into an unconfirmed species that day, and I certainly didn't expect to...fall in love.
I was out camping because my parents had thrown me out of the house because they had found my collection of dog urine that I kept in jars hidden in the bottom shelf of my desk. They were apparently sick of me "bringing sin into their house." It wasn't sin. It was very clearly just dog urine. Yeesh, right? Luckily, I was able to grab my pup tent and a bag of marshmallows before my dad started whacking me with the newspaper and yelling that he "had no son." I guess pop must be going senile or something, because he was very clearly whacking his own son with a newspaper. Either that, or it was dad's way of telling me that mom had an affair and I was an illegitimate love child. Didn't really matter though, both mom and dad were united enough to refuse to give me back my jars of urine. Fascists.Then came my search for a proper camp to make my new home. My friend, Lorenzo, who worked at Circuit City said I smelled too much like Pizza Rolls and was distracting the customers. My aunt, Barb, said that I would have to wear socks if I wanted to stay in her home. Clearly neither of these locations would suit my needs. So I headed for the quiet isolation of Death Woods, right on the outskirts of town. I wasn't worried about the name, although ominous. I had never heard of anyone dying in Death Woods, mostly just setting off fireworks, being raped, or freezing to death.
I could not figure out how to open my pup tent, despite my best efforts of yelling at it and staring and hoping someone would walk by and do it for me. With no options left and my cell phone nearly out of charge, I cried to the heavens for help. "Send anyone, anything!" I pleaded to the Almighty, Poseidon. I begged and begged and wept and eventually went to the bathroom behind a shrub. "Please...I will give anything. Anything that is a pup tent but not my bag of marshmallows. Agh! Send me some assistance! Send me anything that happens to be a large, widely-disbelieved hairy creature with exceptionally large feet, like my hero Shaquille O'Neal!" And lo, the great god of the sea heard my call.
From deep within the mighty forest came a bellow, and I heard branches being trampled as the "thing" leapt towards my humble camp. I was initially frightened, as I had seen similar scenes in films such as The Edge where a mastermind bear used a similar technique to tear apart an African-American fellow and haunt Alec Baldwin. But I was not torn to shreds! Eventually I gathered the strength to look at the creature that stood before me. And the first thing I saw...were its rather large feet!
When I say "rather large," I mean that they were rather very large! Nay! Rather extremely lengthy! I had never seen a beast with such feet, except for my idol and confidante, Shaquille-O-Neal. Could this be my grand friend, come to rescue me from nature's harsh engraspment?
Sadly, no. On the other hand, happily, no. I continued to gaze further upwards, and saw my new friend had hairy legs. Hairier than that of my good mentor and protege, Shaquille of Neal. My eyes finally met its face. It was then that I knew I was in love. Just to be sure, though, I checked out its crotch. And I fell in love all over again, because it was a chick bigfoot. I couldn't see anything in there really, but I knew that if it was a dude bigfoot...well, you know what they say about dudes with big feet...they usually wear boxers to cover up their penis.
"What are you, you majestic creature?" I asked my new love.
"GRAAAAAAAAHHHH!" she replied, eating a bug she had picked off of her shoulder.
From there, it was like a classic romance movie. We spent all day with each other, taking walks, eating the raw flesh of rabbits and other small game, picking lice off of each others backs and eating it, pooping whereever we happened to be when the urge came over us, kicking rocks at me (well, that was mainly her), and being violently raped every night (well, that was mainly me). The language barrier meant we couldn't speak to each other directly, but there was an unspoken bond of love between the two of us. An unspoken bond that was often communicated by her throwing rocks at me, which meant "I love you deeply and eternally, my sweet buttercup," or by my sweetie biting me for no apparent reason, which meant "You taste like Pizza Rolls and I love you despite what others say about you!"
We knew the world would not understand the true depth of our interspecies and intermingling love. My parents would surely die from shock from the news if they were to ever discover of my sordid affair with my female bigfoot, whom I had named "Shaquilley." Coupled with the news of my mother's affair would surely spell the end of that marriage, and I did not wish any harm on the people who had supplied me with Lunchables and Fruit Roll-Ups as a child. I would keep my love a secret from the world, and the world from Shaquilley.
Shaquilley and I lived in her cave, which she shared with a family of bats, who were not very noisy neighbors, but very bitey ones. By day we canoodled and cuddled, by night we made love and sang love songs to one another, pledging our eternal love. I tried teaching Shaquilley to dance - big mistake! Her feet prohibited the delicacy and agility that was required in the art of ballroom dancing and the Macarena. Shaquilley, always the perfectionist, was deeply upset by her failure - and that was the beginning of the schism that would come between us, much like the many lice between the individual hairs on Shaquilley (and eventually my own) head.
One day I returned to our cave after gathering some fruits and berries for a mid-afternoon nosh, when I found Shaquilley was making brutal yet tender love to a wolf who had wandered into our home. I fled the scene, tears streaming down my eyes. I returned an hour later, to find Shaquilley had murdered and was now feasting on the homewrecker. Got what you deserved, you tramp! I thought to myself. There was remorse in my lover's eyes, but I knew that this was the end. The bond of trust had been broken. Although neither of us spoke or threw rocks at one another, we both knew we could not go back to the simple innocence of the early days of our love. Shaquilley bent me over and made sweet, gentle rape to me one last time.
After the pain subsided enough so that I could walk, I left the cave forever, and wandered back home. I was a changed man. I had experienced love. I had experienced hurt, in so so many ways. I had a full, scragly neckbeard.
I will never forget you, my bigfoot love. I will never forget you.
