Posts
The title comes from an iconic line uttered over and over to Ralphie's dismay in his indefatigable quest to acquire a Red Ryder BB gun in "A Christmas Story". The image of Ralphie was featured in one of Jewels' posts (in her now-defunct blog) last July, in which she talked about a time when a BB gun was used to playfully terrorize other people. It brought out a memory that I had forgotten about until now.
I was about 22 at the time when this happened. A bunch of us (all deaf) decided to go camping while it was cold out and we wanted to rough it. We agreed that we would use tents, digging tools, camping utensils, lanterns, non-perishable food, and matches. I thought it would be fun to bring along my pump-action BB gun.
Talk about being young and stupid.
After setting up the tents and a communal fire pit, we all went off in different directions to gather up the wood for the fire pit. One of us found a huge trunk and we recognized it as the perfect bench for us to huddle around the fire. It took all 4 of us just to move it. We could not carry it, despite us being young and full of spunk. LOL
After we got settled in, a friend asked me if he could borrow my BB gun. I gave the approval after telling him to go into the forest, keeping the gun away from us. The rest of us gathered around the fire for companionship and warmth.
We chatted for a long while and once in a while, something from the fire pit would suddenly jump out at us. We thought it was strange how the fire kept showering us with sparks. We kept moving further and further back from the fire until we were keeping the coldness out with our backs while barely keeping the warmth in with our fronts.
As the sun started to sink into the horizon, I got up to stoke the fire some more and I noticed something strange on one of the logs. The log seemed to have a strange round yellow spot on it. The spot seemed familiar, so I looked closer and...
Huh? BB pellet? What was it doing on a log? I shared my discovery with my friends and they were at first puzzled by that. We examined the other logs and found more BB pellets imbedded in them. That's when I cracked the mystery.
Have you figured it out yet?
...
......
.........
............
Our friend had climbed up a tree and shot a whole bunch of BB pellets into the fire. I chewed his ass out about that because we could have been seriously injured by a richocet or a flying spark. What if one of us got shot in the eye? He wasn't fazed by any of that, despite my anger and the rest of us jumping on him for his flagrant disregard for our health.
He was gone for over an hour and he said he had been shooting at the fire for about 20 minutes. He thought it was funny how we couldn't figure out why the fire kept shooting sparks at us. Made it easier for him to keep shooting since we were all deaf. He refused to apologize. What a jerk.
Never went camping with him again and I never brought my BB gun along again.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Even back then you were the responsible one!
I would've probably been the one shooting the pellet gun and Karma would've gotten me back by helping me fall out the tree, gaining a massive bruise on my bum or bruising my coccyx or something equally painful. Stupid at the time but a memory that you look back on and laugh at!
Remember to enter my Bloggers Ink Challenge. Enter your tattoo and you could win a prize from Foul Mouth Shirts!
Oh my goodness. At least we weren't shooting into a fire and adding that element of danger. I'm so glad that you shared your story and that my stupid shenanigans inspired a post. hehe.
ADSL - oh, he got karma'd big time. The last time I saw him, he wasn't able to maintain a steady relationship and he was constantly on the move.
Jewels - hehe, I know. ;) I told my wife, whose last boyfriend before me was him, and she said "What an (bleep)!" LOL
You apparently had a pre-Jackass friend! Y'all were very lucky.
Camping really never equals fun, IMO. ;)
It's a good thing you never went camping with him again: You have two eyes to prove it!
Dude! Your friend got off easy. He should have been...well I don't know, but something bad. At first I thought you were going to say you got the wood from super secret firing range.
Sounds like one of the top 100 dumb things boys do.
The list is longer than that of course.
What is it about boys and BB guns? Some kid just used my new car for target practice recently. I wanted to CHOKE him.
Sheesh.
Nitebyrd - depends on WHO you camp with that ups the fun factor. ;)
Sandra - haha, you're right!
Copyboy - it was good that I got to know what kind of person he was before we went to college together. He was a mean drunk as well.
GoE - hehe! I like that... Hey! I'm male too! LOL
Chloe - I'm telling you from experience, it's all about the gratification of handling something that you KNOW will always be bigger than your...never mind. ;)
Post a Comment