Why I haven't posted a Christmas blog yet. Well, there are a few reasons why I haven't.
Reason 1: I haven't put any thought into a Christmas blog for this year and am too tired to do so.
Reason 2: In all honesty I don't think I could top last years post.
And thats why I haven't posted a Christmas blog, but if you really want to read one I suggest last years.
Thanks and Merry Christmas,
Footballfullback
Stupidity is Often Painful.
As you may or may not know, I live in the South. A good friend of mine is what you might call an up-and-coming redneck. I stayed the night at his house one night, and other than his nearly burning himself - which is another story, everything went fine...until about four o'clock the next day.
We decided to go squirrel hunting (pronounced huntin' down here just so you know) and our weapons of choice were .22 rifles. Everything was going fine, we killed a squirrel or two and had to reload so we stopped and began the process of reloading.
The rifle my friend was using at the time had a tube under the barrel, into which you placed the bullets one at the time to reload it. He put the stock (which is the part of the gun which is placed on your shoulder while you shoot, for you gun-illiterate people) on the ground and kneeled beside the weapon. He pulled out some bullets and began to reload the gun.
Then it got ugly.
Apparently there was a bullet in the chamber and the safety on the gun was off. Also for some ungodly reason he had his finger placed OVER the barrel to "Steady the gun while he was reloading."
Bad combination.
"Normally I'm not that stupid,"said my friend afterwards, "I don't know why I did that. It just happened."
Needless to say, the gun went off (how it went off is still a mystery) and the bullet ripped through my friend's left index finger, shattering the joint and tearing tendons.
I was beside him reloading my gun when this happened and heard the shot. I turned to see my friend, who was just as calm as ever, looking at his finger as if he had a small cut on it and it was no big deal. I could not see his finger because of the angle and figured that, at worst, the bullet had simply grazed his finger and he indeed had only a small cut. I had no idea of the magnitude of the injury.
"Shoot your finger?" I ask, expecting a calm answer that would be somewhere along the lines of "Yeah, just grazed it. I'll be alright."
Instead, recognition flashes across his face and panic sets in.
"Yeah I did!" He shouts and takes off running.
I sit stunned for a moment, my mind trying to register what has just taken place.
My friend (who has covered about fifty yards in five seconds, which is the fastest I've ever seen him run and probably the fastest he ever will run in his life) stops, turns back, and yells at me, "Come on! I shot my finger!"
My mind, which is still struggling to grasp the event which has just taken place, finally wades through everything long enough to shout out one order:
RUN.
Run where?
HOUSE.
What then?
GET HIS PARENTS.
What then?
.........................
At this point my mind reenters its sluggish movement while trying to simultaneously figure out what happened and what to do.
It didn't matter anyway - by the time I reached the house my friend was already in the car about to take out to the hospital.
The last thing he says to me before they speed away is, "You think I'll be able to use it again?"
"I don't know!" I said the only thing I could think before he was gone.
That was 3 weeks ago and my friend is doing better now, although whether or not he'll ever use his finger again is still up in the air.
I spoke to him a few days after it happened and asked,"So what have we learned?"
"Uh.....always use a gun with a clip," was the reply.
"I was going for, 'Never put your finger over the barrel'," I said.
"That works too."
We decided to go squirrel hunting (pronounced huntin' down here just so you know) and our weapons of choice were .22 rifles. Everything was going fine, we killed a squirrel or two and had to reload so we stopped and began the process of reloading.
The rifle my friend was using at the time had a tube under the barrel, into which you placed the bullets one at the time to reload it. He put the stock (which is the part of the gun which is placed on your shoulder while you shoot, for you gun-illiterate people) on the ground and kneeled beside the weapon. He pulled out some bullets and began to reload the gun.
Then it got ugly.
Apparently there was a bullet in the chamber and the safety on the gun was off. Also for some ungodly reason he had his finger placed OVER the barrel to "Steady the gun while he was reloading."
Bad combination.
"Normally I'm not that stupid,"said my friend afterwards, "I don't know why I did that. It just happened."
Needless to say, the gun went off (how it went off is still a mystery) and the bullet ripped through my friend's left index finger, shattering the joint and tearing tendons.
I was beside him reloading my gun when this happened and heard the shot. I turned to see my friend, who was just as calm as ever, looking at his finger as if he had a small cut on it and it was no big deal. I could not see his finger because of the angle and figured that, at worst, the bullet had simply grazed his finger and he indeed had only a small cut. I had no idea of the magnitude of the injury.
"Shoot your finger?" I ask, expecting a calm answer that would be somewhere along the lines of "Yeah, just grazed it. I'll be alright."
Instead, recognition flashes across his face and panic sets in.
"Yeah I did!" He shouts and takes off running.
I sit stunned for a moment, my mind trying to register what has just taken place.
My friend (who has covered about fifty yards in five seconds, which is the fastest I've ever seen him run and probably the fastest he ever will run in his life) stops, turns back, and yells at me, "Come on! I shot my finger!"
My mind, which is still struggling to grasp the event which has just taken place, finally wades through everything long enough to shout out one order:
RUN.
Run where?
HOUSE.
What then?
GET HIS PARENTS.
What then?
.........................
At this point my mind reenters its sluggish movement while trying to simultaneously figure out what happened and what to do.
It didn't matter anyway - by the time I reached the house my friend was already in the car about to take out to the hospital.
The last thing he says to me before they speed away is, "You think I'll be able to use it again?"
"I don't know!" I said the only thing I could think before he was gone.
That was 3 weeks ago and my friend is doing better now, although whether or not he'll ever use his finger again is still up in the air.
I spoke to him a few days after it happened and asked,"So what have we learned?"
"Uh.....always use a gun with a clip," was the reply.
"I was going for, 'Never put your finger over the barrel'," I said.
"That works too."
