Hey, what's that? Shoot it!

Dad and Kris were in the back yard shooting clay pigeons. They used a shotgun or a 22 or something—my knowledge of these things does not run deep. Whatever the weapon of choice was, I was intrigued.

I watched from my window as Kris loaded yellow pigeons into the red, ‘c’ shaped launcher and flung them through the air. Dad waited, gun pointing up at the sky, butt or handle—or whatever the back end is called—resting against his shoulder. He cocked his head to the side, squinted his eye, and squeezed the trigger.

Pow.

The clay disc broke into a hundred little pieces and fell to the ground.

Leaning closer to the window, I tried to memorize everything they did—from the way they loaded the ridiculously named pigeons to how they held the gun. Deep within I felt a great disturbance building. It churned and spread to my extremities like a rumbling earthquake.

I could shoot clay pigeons. I could do it better than them. I wouldn’t miss.

Throwing on some clothes, I zipped through the family room, passing Mom by in a whirlwind.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

I stopped in the kitchen. “I’m gonna go shoot with Kris and Dad,” I said, tapping my foot. She was holding me up.

Mom laughed and waved her hand and I darted through the back door.

“Hey, can I try?” I asked, startling my gun toting family members.

Dad gave me a look that said I’d done something wrong.

“What?”

“Don’t scare people holding guns,” he scolded, then his face softened and he looked at me with a big smile. “Are you sure you want to try?”

“Yep, I’ve been watching from the window.”

Kris laughed and showed me the pigeons and how to load and launch them, but I wasn’t interested; I wanted to hold the gun. “Can I shoot now?”

Standing behind me, Dad held the handle—or whatever—against my shoulder, told me how to use the sight and pull the trigger. I was golden.

“Ready?” Kris asked.

“Go,” I said, shaking from head to toe.

The pigeon soared through the air. I lined my eye with the sight, squeezed the trigger and Pow, I flew back on my ass. The target still broke into a hundred pieces, but not because my bullet connected with it, no, the clay broke when it smacked the ground.

Dad and Kris bent over in hysterics. I cried. My shoulder hurt so bad, as did my pride—and worse my butt!

Running inside, I swore I’d never touch another gun for as long as I lived, but that promise was broken a couple years ago when my husband bought . . . ummm . . . errr . . . a 9mm. So far I’ve avoided shooting it, but I’m sure one of these days my competitive spirit will take over and I’ll challenge him to target practice—at the range.