My best gun story

Big battles at home over the starting time of tomorrow’s move. The last time we moved, which was not so long ago, we didn’t start until 3:00 p.m! Needless to say we ended up having to rent the truck for an extra day, and some of us were working from early in the morning until the wee hours just because certain other people couldn’t get up before noon or 1:00. Not the way I like to move. But of course, what sane person likes any part of moving except the end result? I’ll be so glad when this is over. This apartment is expensive without my Mom paying part of it, though. So I’ll be moving in the near future, too.

My gun reaction on Saturday surprised me—a lot. I’d grown up with guns. My Dad and brothers hunted (women didn’t hunt, in my family) and I’ve shot guns. When I was married and living in the country I owned a shotgun and a small rifle. I loved that rifle, it was a Ruger 22 with a clip. I slept with the clip under my pillow and the gun by my side because my ex worked rotating shifts and so was gone all night sometimes. My best gun story was with that rifle:

I was alone in the house in the middle of the woods with my baby son sleeping in the next room. I awakened to a violent pounding on the back door, which led into our kitchen. It was a drunken friend of one of my ex’s friends and he was yelling all sorts of scary and obsene things at me through the door, which had a window. I quickly got up, slipped on my bathrobe and put the clip into the rifle. I turned on the kitchen light so he could see me clearly (probably not so safe, really, as then I was a clear target if HE had a weapon!) went down on one knee and balanced the gun on that knee. He saw me all right and stopped hollering, especially when he heard the click of the gun cocking.

“If you break that door down, I will blow off your head.” I said loudly to him, and meant it. Even though I didn’t think a 22 could take off anyone’s head, it was close range and I definely would be able to hit him with several shots. My coldblooded plan was to shoot him as many times as it took to drop him and THEN fire into the ceiling and later claim I’d fired a warning shot. I didn’t want to go to prison for murder, the laws about shooting intruders are kind of weird in my old state.

Well, he decided not to break our door down and disappeared into the woods. No, I didn’t call the police after that, either. I didn’t dare because my ex hung out with such a motley bunch of people (just think of Earl, on TV) that there was no telling what he/they had in the basement, possibly drugs, stolen goods. I didn’t even go down there as our laundry was upstairs. I didn’t want the police looking through our house! And, of course it would have taken them a very long time to come to our house, which is the big difference between living in the country and living in town. Country people need to be quite self-sufficient because help isn't just a few minutes away.

When married, I’ve done a some small game hunting and always liked the feel of a gun in my hand. Just thought I’d love shooting some big, powerful guns. But the guns on Saturday were black, scary, had scopes and straps. Our targets were human-shaped. It was very unnerving. And, as I said yesterday, I couldn’t have predicted that my reaction would be to feel more nervous and scared than thrilled to shoot THOSE rifles! There was a progressive lead-up to my semi-freaking out over it too, which I’ll write about later this week. Have a good Tuesday!