I’ve had guns since I was about 10 or 11, my dad bought me a .22 slug gun and off we went to get a gun license. It cost .75 cents and all I had to do to get it was to ask.
Twenty years ago I was handed my three year old daughter to care for so I sold the last of the guns and haven’t had a gun since. I’ve done a lot of hunting and like many old hunters, I had a kind of awakening and now I wouldn’t hurt a fly. (Well...maybe a fly! Pesky things) Over the years I’ve had maybe 12-15 different guns, but having been raised with them I learned quite young how to care for them and more importantly how NOT to handle them. I’ve been in several close calls with guns and been shot twice. (yes, I know…what a twit) Maybe I’ll tell you about that one day, but today I’ll tell you about the time my dear wife nearly blew my head off.. on purpose!
I was going duck hunting with friends so I bought a shotgun. As a joke I took several shotgun shells and removed the pellets leaving only the wadding, powder and firing cap, which makes it sound like its gone off but there is no ‘bullet’. I put the shells back together so I could swap them into my friends gun as a laugh. This way he would shoot but not hit anything and I could give him shit for being a bad shot. My then new wife was not raised around guns and therefore did not know rule number1.
RULE 1: Don’t ever aim a gun at anyone…EVER.
She had watched me unload the shells and when I went for a shower she got and unloaded a shell to play a trick on me. I walked out of the shower and as I walked down the hall she called to me, I turned as she raised the gun to her shoulder, aimed at me, and fired. (very surreal) I actually saw the missiles coming at me and instinctively dived out of the way. We were about 15 feet apart. (5meters) and I felt the shock wave push past me. There I lay spread eagled on the quarry tiles as a huge cloud of smoke filled the room and the thunderous echo rang through my head. I knew from the sound and smoke that it was a real shotgun shell and was unsure whether to run or what to do.(beg? )
She burst into tears and I realized it was a joke gone badly wrong, the look on her face said it all; she had terrified herself as much as she had me! In her haste she didn’t clean the shell out properly and several pellets the wadding and powder remained in the cartridge. There was a 50 cent size hole in the wall at ear height and another on the inside of the bedroom wall and another in the end of our wardrobe. The pellets and wadding went right through the wall and into the wardrobe which is where I found the bits. (the still closed wardrobe was full of smoke)
Of course I repeated rule number one to her many times after that but need not have worried, the poor girl had given us both the shock of a lifetime and never did anything like that again.
Just to be sure, I took all the firing pins out of my guns without telling her and kept them hidden. ( A little insecure?...you better believe it!)
Did we fight about it?
Well, no, if you could have seen her face you would know why, she was already well freaked out…and me! I was grateful to be alive. (laugh along with me now)
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