Lucky I Got a Compass in the Stock

Growing up in Indiana, there's two things you need to know how to do: shoot a free throw and shoot a gun.

I'm hopeful, at this point, that you're familiar with my prowess when it comes to the hardwood. Well, at least you know that basketball courses through my veins and drips from my tongue. Ew. Basketball has suddenly taken a turn for the gross, and I'm not even talking about being posterized like Greg "Sweaty Balls on My Chin" Paulus.

In case anyone cares: bounce the ball three times, spin it in my right palm, bend knees, breathe out, shoot, swish.

Did you know that I'm a dead-eye with a rifle? Damn straight. See, my best friend, whom I mentioned in passing during the Decapitated Clown Incident of 1993, lived in the middle of farmin' country. He lived just outside of Majenica, IN, and if that doesn't smack of BFE, then I don't know what does (perhaps living outside of Bippus or Disko, IN...but I'm getting off topic again). Basically, my friend, the Brewing Optometrist, had a huge yard--good for all sorts of mischief--with a barn all the way at the back of the property. Everything else was fields. If it wasn't house, yard, driveway, garage, barn, or field, it was woods. And empty. Lots of space here.

Anyway, out behind my friend's barn was a trash pile. Mostly it was branches and stuff that fell off the trees and various and sundry other collections of yard refuse. It just so happened to be packed solid enough that it would slow a bullet, but not cause the bullet to ricochet. It was our de facto shooting range.

I was out there one day with my trusty .22 bolt-action rifle when my buddy and his brother were like, "Look what we got: lightbulbs!" They had collected about fifty burnt out light bulbs--how long they had horded this many is difficult to fathom, but they had them and I was giddy with desire and the unbridled ecstasy of avarice.

Selecting a particularly delectable 100 watt beauty from the pile, I set it halfway up on the brush pile and returned to the back side of the barn. I loaded the weapon, hearing the bullet slide into the chamber with the cool, steely promise of death. Raising the muzzle of the rifle, I peered down the length of the cold steel barrel.

"Ten bucks says he doesn't hit it," I heard the Brewing Optometrist call to his brother derisively behind me. I put my former best friend out of my mind, focused only on the offending bulb before me. Holding my breath, my thumb clicked off the safety and my finger slowly began to squeeze.

BANG!

There was no sound of shattering glass. I raised my cheek from the stock as I clicked the safety back on, raising the muzzle and popping the bolt action back, spewing a smoking, spent shell somewhere into the withered brown grass at my feet.

The light bulb still stood before me. A .22 caliber hole fired through it so cleanly that only the glass struck by the bullet was displaced. Otherwise, it was perfectly whole.

Not looking at my friend, staring at the trophy before me, I calmly and quietly stated, "I'll take that ten bucks now, bub."

That sonuvabitch never did pay up.