Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Hunting Needed


Our business is called The Little Hunting Creek Company; it is a historical name and it is right in our neighborhood. Just a short hop, skip and jump down the hill from here, in fact. George Washington once owned Little Hunting Creek and all of the surrounding land. Most of the land nearby is either National Parkland or protected marshland. It is especially beautiful here this time of year, when everything is green and blooming and all the birds have returned. We enjoy going out on the creek in our canoe, and the dogs (pictured in a previous post) have been known to jump in.
But our company has nothing to do with hunting, as even a quick glimpse at our website will show. Nothing even remotely connected with hunting.

Imagine our amusement when we received this email yesterday (names have been redacted)
DEAR SIR, WE ARE INTERESTED IN HUNTING AT YOUR PLACE I WANT TO KNOW THE COST AND ALSO I NEED MORE DETAILS ON HOW YOUR HUNTING ACTIVITIES ARE LIKE,

1 DO YOU HAVE ACCOMMODATION,
2 TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES,
3 DO YOU HANDLE FEEDING OF THE HUNTERS

I WILL ALSO LIKE TO KNOW THE HUNTING PACKAGES YOU HAVE AND PERIODS OR DATES AVAILABLE AND OTHER NECESSARY THINGS HE WILL NEED TO BRING ALONG FOR HUNTING
HE WISHES TO HUNT FOR 2 DAYS AND IT WILL BE FULL DAY HUNT.

I WILL BE EXPECTING YOUR SOONEST REPLY WITH PACKAGES AVAILABLE THE DATES AND AMOUNT SO THAT I CAN MAKE ARRANGEMENTS ON HIS ARRIVAL AND PAYMENT OF THE HUNT
NOTE: DO YOU ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS AS A MEANS OF PAYMENT
REGARDS.

Mr. Hunting Creek loves this idea. He says he would be happy to take people fishing for the mighty snakeheads (spellcheck suggested skinheads as an alternative instead. Spellcheck has a quirky sense of humor, have you noticed?) on Little Hunting Creek. We do have authentic English Springer Spaniels, but they have never hunted birds. (They did catch a squirrel once, but I think that was pure dumb luck.) Did this Englishman even LOOK at our website? Does he imagine that we do quilting and sewing, with hunting on the side?
Mr. Hunting Creek is all for doing British empire-style hunting on the side. He says this is a perfect opportunity to wear clothes like Robert Redford's in Out Of Africa and have elegantly dressed servants to assist the hunting party. He is imagining the part of the movie where they go on Safari and are dressed formally for dinner in the middle of the wilds of Kenya. That's the kind of hunting he has in mind. He wants a Hunting Lodge too, and the staff that goes with it. However, no one hunts on Little Hunting Creek. People fish for snakeheads and catfish. There are beautiful ducks and herons and geese. There are deer, foxes and possums, but alas for our English friends, no lodges or shooting parties. No food for the hunters either (unless they want to dine in Old Town Alexandria). Perhaps I should do restaurant reviews on the side? But I draw the line at hunting.
Oh wait! A quick scan of the internets shows that he might have us confused with these people!(But he had our email address. He had to have gotten that from our website. Didn't he get just a teensy bit concerned when he saw the Vintage Vogue Designer Patterns and quilting software? I'll send him a polite reply. Dear Sir, We regret to inform you...

2 comments:

Meg said...

I am laughing, laughing, laughing at this. Oh, I needed an end-of-the-day chuckle—thanks!

Gretchen the Household Deity said...

So funny! Although, it sounds a bit scammy rather than confused to me. "Soonest reply," arrangements for a "big wig," and references to payment in the initial email all scream 419 to me.