I'll Stick To Water Balloons

On a whim, and because this blog sometimes just refuses to write itself no matter how much I sit in a chair and stare at the blank screen, Husband and I went to a gun club a short while ago to blow the beejeezus out of some stuff. We went with friends and thought it was going to be a grand ol' time.  

I imagined it would be something like this....

I thought I was ready for what firing a gun would involve. After all, I grew up playing Laura Croft and got to really high levels before I developed my own breasts and a life. I figured that shooting a gun would be a lark. Definitely a good skill to have under my belt and certainly it would improve my desirability on any Zombie Apocalypse team, since my current skill set of making coffee and pissing people off is not likely to carry me further than the first blind alley.


Imagine my horror when I realised that shooting a real rifle or handgun is far different from cramming my thumbs down on 'select-A' and screaming "Die, mummy, DIE!"  It was loud, jarring and horrible. The feeling of the rifle butt jamming into my shoulder as the first round cracked out of the pointy end scared the willies out of me.  I fired off the rest of my 15 rounds as fast as I could, hoping that no one would notice how terrified I was.



The handgun was worse; a tiny, deadly thing sitting heavy in my hand like the weight of all the dread and fear in the world. I hated every second that it was in my sight. At one point I was left alone with it and I felt as though someone had just handed me a scorpion. The longer I held it the heavier and more hateful it felt and I was relieved when it was all finally over.


Husband was a champ. He was well aware of how terrified I was and did his best to keep everything rolling along for me. Our friends looked as though they were having a great time and left seemingly exhilarated by the experience. I went home and sat quietly in a chair with Fritti on my lap and tried not to think loud thoughts while I waited for the screaming horrors to stop wracking my body. 

For Neb, who thought I might like to try shooting stuff. Thank you for the lesson and for making it painfully clear that I am at best zombie bait and at worst, likely to shoot my team leader in the groin.