Huntin’ and a-cooking: A disaster in the making?

I
 was asked to go huntin’. I knew it would be a disaster from the get-go because of the way I was asked. I have a friend. Okay, I have a few friends, and while I consider this guy a friend, he lives from one disaster to another. His name is Rufus. And while he is an imaginary friend, I am not making this up. Well, not totally. Rufus is genuine to me and is based on friends I actually do have — sort of a cross of Bubba with Huck if the cross didn’t happen in a lab full of genetic scientists. Instead, this one occurred in the back room of the Thirsty Lizard Bar and Car Wash.
Rufus didn’t ask me to go hunting. If that were the case, I would have had no qualms about such an adventure. We would have gone out, dressed all in camo, with adequately cleaned and prepared rifles. We would have plenty of water in hermetically sealed bottles with “Fresh Artesian Spring Water from Artesian wells--Bottled at the source in Artesia” printed on the side. I know it would have been safe and healthy, with plenty of spring water minerals that dissolved into the water after being filtered over rocks that had animal poop on it at one time. 
Delicious.
But Rufus didn’t ask me to go hunting. Rufus asked, “Ya wanna go huntin’?” Big difference.
When you go huntin’, you bring along every firearm you possess, whether they have been cleaned or not. Usually, you are wearing shorts and a ripped-up and grease-smeared T-shirt. Strap-on sandals are essential if you are feeling formal. But if you have a more casual attitude, you wear flip-flops. And instead of water, you bring Bud. Bud is Rufus’ best friend. He’s tall, thin and just above freezing. Yep! Bud is his beer unless Rufus really feels informal. Then Bud is dried plant parts, … but I won’t go there because Rufus has agreed to leave that friend at home whenever he’s around me.
Now when you go hunting, you drive a big pickup. You are geared up in protective footwear. You park a long way from your hunting grounds, which is usually in the wilderness and beautiful, and you have to hike quite a ways to get there. You find your deer or elk, and shortly after that, you have a freezer full of venison.
You also have a head on your wall. It’s as if the deer was running so hard that he couldn’t stop in time and BAM! He got stuck halfway through your wall. People who go hunting know the Constitution backward
and sideways. I hope they know it forward as well because it makes a lot more sense that way.
On the other hand, when you go huntin’, it’s completely different. You drive a 1970s Ford Boat that rocks back and forth every time you press the brake pedal. Each door is painted a different color, the hood is missing, and there are no bumpers. You wear your flip-flops and park next to a STOP sign in the middle of nowhere, usually at the intersection of two rarely used gravel roads. After you quench your thirst, you use the crowbar to pry open the severely dented trunk. Then you pull out the first gun you can lay your hands on, grab a clip — and hopefully loaded with the same caliber as the gun uses — but if not, you’ll make do somehow. After you have quenched your incredible thirst with Bud (it was a long 12-mile drive, after all), you shoot the STOP sign several times. This is also thirsty work, and you need to do something about that. But Bud is gone now. However, if you planned ahead, you also invited Jack to the huntin’ trip. You end up with a bullet-hole-riddled stop sign mounted on your garage wall and a pissed off wife, because you also hit several trees or boulders on the long drive back home. Like I said before, Rufus often asks me to do something that leads from one disaster to another. We all know a Rufus, and if you don’t, you might
be Rufus.
This time I didn’t go. You see, Allan asked me to go hunting. He said, “I’m going on a hunting safari in Africa. Do you want to come along?”
How could I resist? I love to eat exotic things, and the idea of cooking something from another continent was too good to pass up. Now when I do some cookin’, it’s simple and easy. Here’s the recipe: put hot dogs and a can of chili in a crusty dented pan, cook them on medium heat until the chili is burned but the hot dogs are still cold. You scoop all that onto a bun that sits on a paper plate. Then cover the whole thing with enough sharp cheddar cheese until that is all you can taste. Important side note—you must not eat this concoction with anything but a spork. Last but not least, invite Bud.
Cooking, however, is sophisticated and requires a bit more preparation. First off, you have to cook what you shot. That is the hunter’s first law. You shot it, you eat it! 
So, now, for the sophisticated palate, I give you my recipe for Elephant Stew. The ingredients are as follows: One medium-size elephant, cut into bite-size pieces…