Mating Season

Mating season is no time for cold feet, especially for a sasquatch. The dry spells of recent years are no excuse to hunker down at the cave while the rest of my species exchanges love and fluids. This year will be different. No, don’t say this year. Tonight. Tonight will be different. I’m prepped. I’ve got this. I haven’t washed in the creek since last halfmoon. My musk is optimized. My fur is burly. Pheromones practically spraying. The females will come drooling. They never have before, but hey, that’s not productive self-talk. Remember, this isn’t about me. I have responsibility. Only way to bolster our numbers is to go out, lay it all out there, and see who bites. Mating is my civic duty. For a sasquatch, mating is an act of charity.

           Do I have any better way to spend the evening? I don’t get out enough as is. I have a splendid cave. Great view. Stone walls. Open concept. Dung-heated too. I got some hot real estate. Not every sasquatch can snag himself a National Park dwelling, let alone one with enough room for two, but no female has yet to take me up on that offer.

           And none will if I never leave it.

           Winters don’t make it any easier. It’s not fair. Bears get to sleep the months away while we grow bored and fat. Gives us no opportunity to curb the flub in time for mating season. This results in a bunch of chunky, ugly fur bags groping in the dark, hoping our partner is equally out-of-shape or polite enough not to mention the muffin top or the meaty thighs before the act the charity can be mutually performed. In fact, my trouble areas are showing right now. I feel the lack of cardio. I’m panting. How can I be panting? I’m not a leap and a bound from the cave!

Human tourism keeps me slim, but that trickles dry every winter as well. In the summer, the generous fellow at the human rest stop, who has almost as much fur as myself, leaves me salmon on the back porch in exchange for my services: a theatrically conspicuous growl or thumping through the campgrounds at night, something to scare and delight the human tent-dwellers. I’m a bit of a showman.

Here come the grounds now. They’re empty, of course. No tents. No females. Not one sniff of one. Prospects are slim, unlike my post-winter physique. Stop it—remember that self-talk. Gotta keep that self-talk in check. Tonight is the night. Hookups may be few and far between, but tonight will be different. Tonight I’m on the prowl.

The rest stop glows from two windows in the darkness up ahead. The edge of National Park boundaries. No salmon waits on the back porch; my services are out of commission right now. No matter. I have other services to attend to tonight. Don’t think about past underperformances. Don’t think about the beefy Canadian sasquatch last spring, the one with the eleventh toe—what a score she was—who got embarrassed and skittered off when a pair of peeping-tom tent-dwellers caught us in their flashlights. Prudes, all of them. I oughta bust into one of their tents and embarrass them mid-charity. They were loud enough about it. No need to rub it in.

The rest stop passes. The rocky plain where the humans park their wheel machines that fart fumes is vacant. The tourist trails begin here. Might as well choose one of them. Better than wandering. Better than aimless hunting. Some humans spend lifetimes hunting for my species with their camera boxes and never find us, not a one. My chances don’t seem much better.

Woodland is tamer at these elevations, tamer than the fields surrounding my cave. That’s if you don’t count the trash. With the spring thaw comes the trash, once buried under snow, now littering the trailside. My cave has much better upkeep. It’s a nice cave. Warm. Undemanding. I could still scamper back with my dignity intact. No—retreat is not an option. Look, the trees are thinning. The trail bloats into a diamond shape. An abandoned play place for human younglings towers in the center, perhaps the same younglings produced in those tents.

I should turn back. No females here. I’m better off prowling higher in the mountains. I’m better off trying—

Wait. What’s that scent? That hot, delirious scent! I trust my honker, and I’ll bet a season’s worth of salmon the scent is coming from that conifer. Over here. Yes, that’s sasquatch urine. Not mine, either, though I do have to tinkle. It’s sour. It’s fresh.

She’s nearby. She’s leaving a trail. Classy. I like a classy girl. The skanky ones mark territory with dung or dandruff, but this one is classy.

I pick up pace. Must keep up. She’s close, but for how long? My heart gallops. Oh, that lack of cardio. Do I have enough time to bust out a few pushups? No, I gotta own my body. Flub and all. She’ll accept me. Once she catches whiff of my savvy. Personality is what matters, anyway.

At first, she’s nothing but a lumbering silhouette broken from view by trees, but she’s there, and boy, that swing in her arms. That sway in her stride. Dome head. Long russet fur. She’s getting closer. Has she noticed me yet? She will. Yes, she will.

The moonlight slants through the canopy, and it couldn’t be more romantic. I should slow down and position myself in some favorable light. Hide my unflattering portions in shadow if possible. Give her a good view. She might wanna talk first, and even if so, my appearance will speak first and foremost. She might wanna skip the talk, too, and I would be fine with that.

She’s gorgeous. Seven-foot. Short, but that makes her all the cuter. She is huge where it counts. That’s right: her feet. What she lacks in hips she makes up for in feet. Her toes are as plump as mushrooms. Tasty, I bet. Tangy like goat cheese. But she would never let me touch her feet until the second date. Business first. Feet later. Cultural norms are a buzzkill.

She sees me now. Boy, do I have the butterflies? Nerves are normal. Showtime is upon us. I am a showman. Don’t think about the Canadian female. No tent-dwellers here. Nothing to stop us. Forget about the out-of-state squatch who claimed to have a boyfriend in the Himalayas. Don’t think about the black bear I mistook for a female three mating seasons ago. None of that matters now.

Her feet thump over hard earth. She nears. She paces the edge of moonlight, sizing me up. I put my feet forward. I let her gawk all she wants.

She looks wonderfully unphotogenic. Our species are famously so—to many humans’ disappointment—and she more than all the rest. She’s ruddy and real, not like those shoddy Bigfoots the humans appropriate to sell shampoo and beef jerky.

           She stays put. She won’t enter the moonlight. She’s shy. So cute. I’ll have to lead, and that’s just fine and dandy. How to start? “Hello” might work. Her name would be another good launching point. On the other hand, so would the cave.

           I cross the moon-washed patch of woods. The space between us shrinks. She backs away. She’s playing. She’s teasing. She’s . . . snarling?

           Her mouth hangs agape. She’s mortified. Oh no, she’s seen my midsection. It’s my flub. No, it’s my feet, isn’t it? They’re childlike compared to hers. I was attractive in half-shadow, but once she saw the whole package, she wanted no part in it.

           Try sweet-talking. Show her that savvy. Impress her somehow. My cave. I have a nice cave. Not any squatch can score a cave like mine, but there are other males in the Park. She has options. I have to be aggressive. Some females like that.

           I reach for her hand and let out a low growl-purr. She doesn’t play along. This is no way to bolster the population, sweetheart. Then again, what do I know? I can’t speak from experience. Hey, remember that self-talk.

           But she darts away. She enters the light. Her full form hangs loose in moon-glow. Beautiful feet and domed head and everything in between . . .

           Including all the wrong equipment. She is a he, and I’m a fool. He is just another bloke on the prowl, and not, I’m sure, for someone like myself. We stare at each other. Moments before I was prepared to exchange love, but now we volley awkward grunts instead.

           And he’s gone. Off to resume the hunt.

           My cave is warm and cozy when I return. I kick back and cross my ankles and try not to look at my small feet. How am I to compete with monster feet like that guy has? How humiliating. I can’t show my face outside. Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow night. Don’t push it. It’ll take time to regain my mojo.

There’s always next year.