Recently, the hubby came home from work, had this quirky grin on his face and said, “You and I, tomorrow morning, have plans.” He wouldn’t tell me what they were, just that he was taking me somewhere. First, let me say, never speak words like that to a writer. Can I tell you how many things (some very good and some very, very bad) went through my mind? Um, hello, dramatic by nature, overactive imagination by profession! Well, I finally had to give up guessing because I was driving myself batty. Cut to the next morning and he tells me he’s taking me to the shooting range. Not what I expected, but something I’d really wanted to do. As had he, so began our Saturday morning date.
Who can beat a date with bullets and gun barrels.
He and I have been talking about going for years. I’ve used guns in almost all my books, if not on the page itself then the people have a workable knowledge of their uses be it from their profession or their lifestyle. Me personally, prior to my “date”, I’d fired a gun once nearly 20 years ago at my uncle’s house. To this day the hubby and I still debate what guns were used—I trust my memory better than his even though he’s a dude and whatnot—it was a .22 hand gun, a .22 rifle and my uncle had a WWII Chinese pistol—I specifically remember it because I tend to talk with my hands and after shooting did so followed by a lot of ducking. Amazingly, my last time to shoot .
Back to the “date”. The hubby like to surprise me with research related treats from time to time. (I have to say that is way more romantic than flowers—it shows he cares about what I do… but I digress) And the shooting range was the perfect morning. I will admit, I was uber-nauseous as we went out there. Didn’t quite know what to expect and/or how to process what we were doing. It was a new one for me.
I’d go into the details of what we used but frankly past telling you I shot two different .22 pistols, I couldn’t tell you much. But it was awesome. Not that I am proficient at anything, but I can (if need be) load a gun, fire said gun, and be relatively certain I can hit my target. I also know how freaking loud guns are. It took me a good five to ten minutes to get used to the popping sounds at the range—I was afraid I wouldn’t stop jumping at the noise and it was mess up my aim.
I eventually settled into it and hit my target all but 3 times (out of 50)—and one miss, I was trying to use the site on top. I had much better aim with eyeballing it. It was an awesome feeling to shoot even if a little disconcerting at first. The hubby moved up to a larger gun, but—even though a .22 isn’t the optimal defense weapon—I was satisfied that day with what I learned. I do have every intention on going back for further learning, I just haven’t picked the day yet.
I don’t know if you’ve ever shot a gun or have an opinion about it, but it was an experience I rather enjoyed and hope to repeat. We’re not going to run out a buy one to keep in the house (at least not just yet). But it is something that is marked off of one of my need-to-learn lists. And, as far a research goes, it was pretty dern cool!
(Now I am kind of excited to figure out what my next research jaunt will be. Hmm… so many choices. )
Leave a comment