Guns

I ran out of anti-depressants recently. The pharmacist told me there was a snafu that would delay the refill then she asked if I had any left and other similar compassionate questions you might ask someone you weren’t able to help right away. I motioned for her to come closer and when she was finally within inches of my face I whispered to her, “I have a gun at home, you know.”

Well, that will get your prescription filled in a hurry.

Of course I have a gun at my house. I live in Texas, for God’s sake. Everybody here has guns. For years guys used to keep them in gun racks they mounted in the back window of their pickup trucks. For some reason they passed a law against that and I kind of hated to see them go. I wouldn’t think of flipping anyone the bird on the freeway knowing they had a gun in their truck. If you live in Texas long enough you eventually just work with the assumption that everyone has a gun and would shoot you in a heartbeat. It really cuts down on the road rage.

We use our guns for lots of different things here in Texas. My daughter went through a phase in high school when she was fascinated by target shooting. I think it made her feel empowered. She was a pretty good shot, too. We put the target up on a small tree at the edge of the deep woods behind our house. There was absolutely nothing she could have hurt with her bullets. But come spring when the trees leafed out the extra weight was enough to topple the tree. It just folded over. When we looked closely the tree was perforated with a line of bullet holes where the target had been.

Out here in the country you hear gunshots almost every day. One neighbor shoots the turtles in his pond for sport. Another neighbor wears a holstered gun when he works outside. He claims he is on the lookout for coyotes. One year on the first day of hunting season I was standing at the edge of our field enjoying a cup of coffee when I  heard a gunshot.  A few seconds later  a deer came running across our field and disappeared into our woods.

We had some bulldozer guys working on our pond one year and they spotted a water moccasin. The guy in charge hollered out to his assistant to “Go get my gun.” There was a slight delay while they decided which gun he wanted. Apparently, he had several in his car. Then he shot that sucker right there on the spot. Blew his head clean off. These guns aren’t toys. For toys, our kids start with BB guns and work their way up. Most boys growing up in Texas have been shot in the butt by a BB gun at some point in their childhood.

Beaven and I both grew up around guns. The Els family had an antique ball and powder pistol that they were immensely proud of. My Daddy had a gun that was taken from a Japanese soldier during WWII and he loved to show it off. It had a very distinctive sound that I would recognize today if I heard it. Then he had a couple of respectable rifles that he used for deer hunting.

Both of our fathers were hunters, though Beaven’s Dad was more into doves while my father shot deer. And we had trophies mounted on our den wall. A deer, an antelope and a couple of antlers. This made for an interesting scenario when our parakeet found them to be perfect perches. Unfortunately, the bird also did what came naturally onto the floor underneath himself and the couch. Mother couldn’t stand to coop the bird up in a cage all day so we had a moratorium on using the couch until the standoff between bird and trophies was solved. Daddy gave the bird away.

We’re not into hunting in this generation, though, even though we have plenty of guns in our house. I’m not even sure where we have them stored. And I’d have to find the bullets because we keep them stored somewhere else. We are ardent proponents of the theory that it’s not the gun that is dangerous; it’s the combination of guns and bullets so we try to keep them separate. However, I think we could live without them.

I still have no idea why there is such a big deal in this country over registering guns. I have no problem with registering my guns. I had to register a salad spinner once in order to complete the warranty. A salad spinner. Presumably, if the governments wanted to know which of our citizens owned salad spinners they could find out. So far, no one has tried to take away my salad spinner.

Registering my gun puts me in no more danger than my marriage faces if we let homosexuals marry each other. Forgive me for speaking so bluntly but you know how I am.

Oh, and why do I take anti-depressants? I’ve always thought of myself as a positive, upbeat person; certainly not a depressed person. So I was surprised a few years ago when a neurologist prescribed antidepressants to help manage migraine headaches. I’m still not sure if they really help my headaches any but since I’ve been taking them Beaven’s IQ has gone up ten points. So I intend to keep taking them and he agrees that I should. He knows I have a gun.