Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The shadow knows. But who knows what lurks in the hearts of women? I'm certain that I don't know, and neither does anyone most likely. Take my wife for example. We've been together for 17 years. By now you'd think I know her. Yet, it happened again last week.

   "Where's the flashlight?" she said, as she opened a drawer in the kitchen.

“Oh, I think I last saw it in the bedroom on the nightstand, but I'm pretty sure it needs some batteries," I said.

"That's ok," she said, "I have some in a cabinet in the kitchen.”

 "You up to anything?" I asked.

"To go have some fun outside," she said. "I’m going to hunt." After that, she turned on the flashlight, opened the back door, and entered the backyard. It was freezing outside and late, and she was gone for almost an hour. I was nervous, but the football game still had three minutes to go. Suddenly, the door flew open.

"Where were you?" I asked her.

"Can't talk I have to go, my love,” she said, looking to the front door, "I have to hunt in the shadows.” She looked awful. 15 minutes later, she sprinted through the front door, and I could hear sirens.

"The hunt is over, and I feel amazing!" she said, "Also, did you hear those sirens?"

Much like how a hunter may shine lights in the eyes of deer to paralyze them in their tracks. My wife had managed to use her flashlight to paralyze the slow, hard-backed snail using the same method, and much like the Godzilla, she stepped on hundreds a night. She slaughters them, the Iraqis had a better chance of winning. Every single night, she hunts and hunts. Not weather, family, or her favorite podcast, the Chad and JT pod, can stop her. At any point, almost like she was some sort of robot following the algorithms she has been programmed to follow, she will jump to attention, grab the flashlight, and begin hunting. Yes, there is a God and she is my wife!

   The Gods that be nor I will ever understand what haunts the brain of my wife. This is the same woman, who wakes me up from my deep sleep insisting I take care of a spider because it may just climb down from the wall and climb on her, be so malicious when it comes to the

dangerous snail?

   "The spider won't hurt you! Let me get to sleep for one night please!" I said.

She said, "He'll scare me for the rest of the night honey."

"That's ridiculous. Leave me alone, and go back to sleep."

"No,” she says, "We are both staying wide awake till you catch him."

"How do you know there's a spider in here?"

"I heard him talking to me and he’s trying to make me do things  I don't want to do and I’m scared and I just want you to catch him,” she said as she started to cry. It's just like dealing with a 3-year-old with an inventive imagination.

Yesterday, there was a can of beer in our refrigerator.

"What's this?" I ask. We never have alcohol in this house. She kicked out some of our neighbors for bringing drinks to our Christmas party two years ago.

"You need it to go to sleep tonight?"

"No!" She looked at me as if I was crazy for not knowing why the woman who hates beer brought it into the house.

"I'm giving it to the snails tonight,” she said, almost sounding proud of herself. I still didn’t understand though. Had her and the snails come together and talked through their differences?

"The dudes on the podcast I called into said that snails are drawn to beer and will drown themselves in it,” she stated proudly. She began to grab plates from the upper kitchen cabinet and poured a light layer of beer onto each of them. Just enough to where it was past the head levels of a snail.

   The next morning she saw that the plates had been left untouched by the snail. She then returned inside with tears in her eyes and plopped herself down onto the Lazy Boy chair to the right of the couch

"I don't understand,” she said.

"What kind of beer did you buy?"

"Lager,” she said. I didn't have any interest in asking why.

"Buy the non-alcoholic next time maybe they are Islamic .” I joked.

"STOP MAKING JOKES! This is serious,” she screamed, "Salt! Snails love to run into salt and that's what those dudes on the pod said." Now she was trying to mess with their electrolytes? And what is this pod she is talking about? Could it possibly be the super cool “Let's get deep” podcast with Chad and JT for stoker nation?

   It had been two nights since the beer test she performed. I told my wife that afternoon that I needed my sleep and I basically begged her not to wake me up because I had an important meeting at work. I was a partner at the Jon, John and, Jonathan law firm for the 1% charged with heinous crimes. Our client, Mr. Cosby, who was charged with a whole lot of crazy crimes.

   That night I got into bed and it was past 9 O’clock so I believed I was safe from the serial snail killer. She awoke though 30 minutes late at around 9:30 PM. She flew out of bed waking me up instantly. She ran to find her flashlight. She started to shake me as she asked where the batteries were.

“I have no idea let me rest,” I replied

“I need them please help me find them. I don't know what I'm going to do without the hunt.”

“Go find them yourself for once can you just be normal” I responded with anger.

I guess she broke that night. She ran outside screaming after slamming the back door. She had not returned when I woke up. I thought maybe she just needed to release a lot of built of snail hatred.

She never returned though. It has been about two and a half years and I haven't heard anything about her to this day.  That Cosby case really didn't work out either so that just ended up not being a good week for me. I really do love her. She has her quirks, I mean she hunted snails at night, but I really did and do love her.

Some Nights at around 9 O’clock, in my head I can still hear her say “Where’s my flashlight?”