Big Foot’s my boy, I mean my main squeeze. Whenever my husband, Homer, a logger, announces he’s got a gig out of town, I strip down to essentials, paint a cross on my forehead, and crawl out the back door to go looking for my honey. Now, I don’t get all the negative publicity about Bigfoot. He doesn’t bother anyone, least of all young coeds wearing skimpy shorts running through the forest in their flip-flops and falling every ten yards. C.mon, he’s a practical guy. The winters here are hard enough. One night, steaming mad at Homer for clocking me one in the kisser cause I burned the stew again, as I crept around the woods what did I see but ole Bigfoot mounting a huge creature. Instead of dull talk and a cigarette afterwards, they got busy sucking on each other’s mud-caked toes. Hey, wait a minute, Lorraine, I sez to myself. How come Homer has never tried that out on me? By their moans, I gathered it was well worth it. They caught wind of me—we humans smell pretty funky to them—threw a few clods of mud in my direction, growled a bit and galloped away. I’ve seen scarier creatures living underneath my kitchen sink. I started spying on them every chance I got and even left sausages out in the clearing, watching from behind a tree as they noisily devoured their feast. Within a few weeks, Bigfoot and I took to hanging out together around the fire and we developed our own sign language. I tried to teach him some words, but no go. No problema. I had Homer if I was itching to fight with someone.  Here we are, a year later, my belly’s rising like a heap of dough and I’m wondering just what I may have in my oven and how Bigfoot will react. I’ve never met his family though twice I thought I caught someone watching us get it on. You could say we’ve been protective of each other’s privacy. But now that he’s caught covid and may die, I wonder what I’ll do with the baby. What if it’s human? Homer and I failed many times to plant a seedling, so that’s unlikely. He’d blame me, never guessing how correct he was. Samy’s here. My hybrid baby. Two and a half years old. Five feet tall. Non verbal. Skittish. He’ll never be ready for kindergarten.  I’m packing up now to take him into the forest.  The reaction in the papers to the picture of Bigfoot dying in the hospital ward I take as a sign that “civilization” has little to offer Samy or the others.  Homer’s gone too. He wasn’t as stupid as he looked.  My plan is for us to hang around the campfires for a while to test the waters. I doubt they’ll let me become one of them, but Samy’s a different story. He’s got to learn their survival skills. I can get a job nearby—gas station or 7-11—and drop in periodically. Maybe I can get us all vaccinated and score me some “vacation” antibiotics. My life after that? To tell the truth, I wouldn’t think twice about giving BigFoot’s hunky younger cousin a twirl!