Dear Kody Lostroh

I’ll get right to the point—I’m breaking up with you. I know it’s bad form to conduct such business via the Internet, but no doubt you figured out when I didn’t write or call over the holidays that I was not happy with you. I am sure you carried your cell phone around with you every waking minute, hoping that you’d see my number on caller ID. I am not in the least sorry to have disappointed you.

Several factors have contributed to my decision, not the least of which was that your winning the PBR World Championship sent me into a profound funk. I am sure that my loyal readers discerned that something was the matter with me, since I could barely bring myself to type an observation on the Zonkboard, but you, in typically oblivious male fashion, just went right on celebrating with no regard for my feelings.

Perhaps that is as it should be. I have to admit that I was not proud of myself for feeling let down by your victory, and I’ve spent quite some time thinking about why it affected me the way that it did. In my heart of hearts, I did not really believe that Guilherme would manage to pull it out during the finals, since I had intuited what Adriano verbalized when he commented that “Guilherme doesn’t like pressure.” It’s one of those absolutely spot-on observations that cuts a fan to the quick, but I could not deny the truth of it. So by the time the finals rolled around, I had pretty much decided that if J.B. Mauney won the title, I would be able to dance at the party with a heart as light as my heels.

So when you won, I was perplexed because I just couldn’t be happy about it. Certainly I wasn’t surprised—everybody keep saying you were going to win, for months on end. I don’t believe that I am just a dog in the manger, sullenly growling that if my guy can’t win, the guy who wins shouldn’t enjoy it. One of my strictest rules is that I never, never wish that anything bad happens to anyone involved in the sport, not just because I think it's in poor taste, but because though I am not religious in any conventional sense, I do believe that in the end, we reap what we sow.

No, the truth is, something about you has always rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t find your riding style particularly inspiring, and I really dislike the way you go for the easiest bull in the draft every single time. Those are minor matters, however, so despite my sad moping, I was fully prepared to keep my mouth shut and just move on. Then my readers suddenly started pointing out the pictures of your bobcat hunt on the web, and I knew that I had to speak up.

Nearly 20 years ago, when I fired my insensitive and self-absorbed husband, I moved halfway across the country to work for one of the most important history museums in the world. If I mentioned its name, it would no doubt silence any suspicions you might have about how I just don’t understand the rural way of life. One of my co-workers was a courtly Southerner, a graduate of William and Mary and of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, who had worked for several conservation outfits before he landed at the museum as public relations director. He loved fly fishing and hunting for game birds, and he kept company with a long and distinguished line of extraordinary hunting dogs who were, in his view, members of his family.

One Monday morning, he remarked that he’d been out over the weekend on a deer hunt with some folks from back east, and he said in passing that it was the last time he planned to do that. When I asked him why, he said: “Because big game hunters are assholes.”

I won’t go so far as to say that, because as it happens, I grew up in a family of hunters and I have eaten my fair share of venison and game birds. I have no quarrel, none, with anyone hunting to put food on the table, or even because he or she prefers wild game to domestic meat.

But I know, down in my bones, that trophy hunting is despicable, and trophy hunters are despicable, and I want nothing to do with anyone who indulges in it. That most definitely includes you, Mr. Lostroh. I cannot for the life of me understand why anybody would want to shoot a bobcat. They aren’t much bigger than a domestic cat and the worst damage they could possibly do would be raiding somebody’s chicken coop. Just exactly what did you get out of that, besides a big adrenalin rush and the firm conviction that your cojones are bigger than anybody else’s? It wouldn’t surprise me one bit to find out that you’re one of those jerks who hankers to go shoot an elephant or a tiger. Those people are the lowest of the low, in my book.

So from now on, when Leah sidles up to you after a ride, I will be hitting the mute button. When Justin McKee starts waxing poetic about what a great rider you are, I will leave the room. When you see me in Billings this April, don’t even try to look me in the eye. I will not be asking for your autograph, and I will not shake your hand. Just walk on by, Kody. Don’t write me, and don’t call. You and I are done.