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I’ve wanted a set of deer antlers forever. Forever and ever and ever. And then last weekend, while shopping at an antique store with my mom . . .

“Look,” Mom said. “They have antlers! Haven’t you been wanting a set of those?”

"Yea! Antlers!" I said.

While I was examining the antlers, the sales clerk wandered over.

“We just got those in,” the sales clerk said, nodding at the display. “They’re hard to find, because they wait for the deer to shed them. They often find the antlers at the base of trees, after the deer rub their antlers off against the trunk.”

I had no idea deer shed their antlers. And even though I’m a meat-eating kind of a girl, I did love the idea of no-kill antlers. So I immediately pulled out my wallet and bought a set.

“Look, look,” I said to George, once I got home. “Look at the antlers I got!”

“Cool,” he said.

“And these are no-kill antlers, too. The sales woman told me that the deer shed them,” I said happily.

“Ummmm,” George said.

“What?”

“Those antlers weren’t shed,” he said.

“Yes, they were!”

“No, they weren’t.”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Because that’s the skull,” he said, pointing to what I had thought was just a very realistic mounting.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“I am.”

“Deer don’t shed their skulls, do they,” I said, suddenly realizing that the whole antler-shedding story was a big fat lie.

“No,” George said.

And then he laughed for a really, really long time. Much longer than was strictly necessary.

Posted 13 April 2007 at 02:04 PM