My father’s set of goblin-killers

Back in June, I was helping my dad clear out his shed because they were moving across the country to Washington where they would have better resources to care for them. I want to say “resources for the elderly,” but I don’t think of them that way. Yes, they are in their seventies, but my father is still a very able-bodied, able-minded, healthy person. He isn’t feeble. So while I feel I have to say “elderly” to get the point across to y’all, I don’t think of him that way. He is still a man of depth and mystery.

To that point, I have a story to tell about the shed and what I discovered there.

It is June 2020 in Woodville. My parents lived on 30+ acres of land. About 100 yards from their house, my dad built a shed to hold all his lawn mowers and kayaks while also doubling as a workshop. Most of it had to go. My parents were taking very little with them to Washington. They were downsizing from a 3000 square foot house with a shed to an 1800 square foot house. They simply did not have room for everything.

So the week before, my twin (not identical) and I had cleared most of the shed out. I took these gunmetal gray pots home with me, and my brother took most of the tools. (I am not – I repeat NOT – a fixit guy. I have no love for plumbing, wiring, woodworking, or masonry. It’s just not in me. My twin, on the other hand, is the kind of man who fixes his own cars and builds things around the house.)

So by the time I was in there a second time, the shed was pretty empty. I drove my dad and my son up to the shed, just three Dougs on a mini-excursion. There was a lawnmower that didn’t work and a really old above-ground, inflatable tool. You’ve seen this kind of place before. Random, discarded items. The remains that have been picked over again and again and left to rot.

I found a few more pots, and a hedge trimmer, as well as a larger AccuGreen Drop Spreader for putting fertilizer on the lawn. In my mind, these things were gold. They were tools I could put to immediate use, especially the drop spreader because mine hadn’t been working right ever since I stupidly used it as a wheelbarrow to move rocks and concrete.

But then, y’all, then I found the most epic thing you can ever expect to find in your parent’s old shed. I saw something that looked like chains way in the back underneath the counter. They looked rusted, so I didn’t think there was much use to them, but that curiosity cat was scratching the back of my brain. I had to see what these things were. I reached in, put my fingers around the rusted chains, and dragged them out. My mouth was agape. I held up my discovery. I couldn’t believe what I’d found! This:

“Dad, what is this?” I asked, knowing exactly what it was, but I wanted my son to hear this, too.

“Oh, it’s just some old traps I have,” my dad said as cool as a pickle in Antarctica, as natural as green tea in a vegan restaurant.

Why did my father own steel traps? What was he hunting? When did this happen? I had so many questions.

But then the real kicker to the whole thing happened. I said, “What are you doing with these traps? What were you trying to catch?”

And just like in a spy thriller or a horror movie, my dad says – and again, I want emphasize that this was as nonchalant as you can imagine: “Oh, things.”

Things? What kind of things?

He then changed the subject. He redirected us to something else, I forget now. Maybe it was a stack of old dinner plates. But the point is, he never answered. He’s never admitted what he used them for. My guess is that way back in the 1970s when he lived out on property in Maryland, he used the traps to kill raccoons or other animals that would have been a nuisance to his dog kennel business. Or maybe he used them to catch a sasquatch, or perhaps people. That doesn’t sound like my dad, but this is the mind of a horror writer. My mind goes immediately to these places. You can’t show me that you have steel traps and then dismiss why you have them in the first place.

This has immediately become the coolest thing I own and my new favorite family heirloom. Everybody who visits (which is not very many TBH because of COVID-19) has to be shown these gloriously rust-covered traps and told the story of how my father owned traps and won’t tell a soul why. Perhaps he believed chupacabras were trying to enter his house and needed the protection. Perhaps he got in with a bad crowd and had to defend his young wife and family from a slasher, or maybe it was zombies.

Probably zombies.

It’s been almost two months now, and I still relish this treasure. Although, there comes a point where the reason your mother and father own something is not as important or interesting as the fact that they own it at all. I imagine it’s like if you discovered your parents owned a fake fabrege egg from the early 1900s. Why they decided to purchase it is no longer as interesting as the fact that they bought it, kept it, stored it, and maintained it.

And the reality is that at this point, whatever reason my father ever gives for owing traps will be significantly less interesting than the stories I make up in my head. I’ve blown it to a proportion where I like it. I might, for instance, find out one day that the steel traps were a gift from his father back in the 1940s/50s in the mountains of Tennessee when my father was spending much of his childhood roaming the forests and mountains. It would make perfect sense in a 1940s/50s way. This was back when cherry bombs were a perfectly fine birthday present. But in my head it will be a goblin that was sneaking into his house and eating all the cheese.

Nope. It’s definitely zombies.