I live in Riverwest, fairly near the raging Milwaukee River and it's not uncommon for me to see a strange mother or two and three or four children walking around my front yard, right outside the window in my office.

I can see the mothers, looking hopefully for food as their children trail behind them. I can see the mother and the children nibble at snacks that grow in my garden.

I have watched them get what I have available and walk quickly to the house next door, looking for more food to fill their empty bellies. The children, obedient, staying close behind their mother.

Starting Saturday, I can finally kill them. Legally.

Saturday starts the annual season for slaughtering deer in Wisconsin, a period of time passed off variously as a sport, or a natural resources control process or a protect our gardens effort.

Deer hunting, a time when men and (God only knows why) some women and children don orange mixed with camo, tromp through the woods to a campfire well stocked with jerky and beer and artichoke dip and more beer, and sit and drink beer while waiting for an unsuspecting whitetail to wander by and take its chances with a gun held by a drunk with more shakes than your average detox patient.

I used to work with a guy who was an avid deer hunter and I listened to his phone calls as he organized his group by phone each year. I only heard half the conversation, but I could pretty much tell what was going on. My friend asked everyone in his group if they were bringing Pabst, Miller, one of those stupid imports, brandy or schnapps. He didn't quit until he got commitments for all of the above.

He also wondered about Oreos or Fig Newtons. And he wanted to know if the beef jerky was going to be peppered or creole. And to show how disciplined they were they tried to set a time to start drinking. Seven a.m. seemed to be the most popular but a big part of the group went for unlimited.

These guys were concerned about safety, too. They had a rule that while they sat around slugging down the beer and brandy, guns had to be at least 10 feet away. That way if you wanted to blast something, you could put your drink down, get up, wobble your way 10 feet and then start firing.

I want to make it clear here. I am basically opposed to anything that involves shooting a gun. That includes target shooting, deer hunting, that crazy Olympic sport that combines skiing with shooting, out-of-control celebrations of Mexican Independence Day, riots following a World Series win and first-degree murder.

There is a certain inevitability to anything that includes a gun as part of the deal. It's kind of like a police report with the words "1 a.m." and "strip club" in the same sentence. Nothing much good should be expected.

Some people have suggested we have sobriety checks on the hunting horde. I think it would be a better to have drunk checks.

In the interest of fairness, it would be better to have drunks with guns trying to hit the weapon-less deer. Plus, if we have drunks in the fields, a certain percentage would not be able to find their guns, a certain percentage of them wouldn't be able to find the trigger and a certain percentage would fire at anything that moved, making other hunters much less likely to wander the woods.

OK, boys and girls. Load 'em up! Let the hunt begin!