Gone shootin'
As gunshots crack on the range, the safety guy preps me and Monica. "Ever been here before?" Nope. "Ever shot before?" Nope. Not really. Monica resists telling him about her Texas upbringing and the time a friend's dad took her and her friend shooting as kids. "Ever spent any time around guns?" Nope! "Well, we'll start with the basics then…"
LivingSocial is, of course, responsible for this. When the website offers its buttoned-down, yoga-taking, happy-hour-drinking, Starbucks-and-the-Starbucks-and-the-Starbucks urbanite audience a chance to shoot a gun, who am I to decline? I live in America. We can debate if America is the land of the gun. But America is most surely the land of the deal.
My kind of joke: A sign about magazine loading on the magazine table. Shooting a gun turns out to be easier than I thought. Shooting safely also turns out to be easier than I thought. I'm a klutz, but the process makes not shooting yourself in the foot easy. Hooray! The deal gets us earmuffs, glasses, a box of ammo, and the gun — a Glock 19. (Counter guy: "What kind of gun do ya want?" Me: "What do you recommend?")
The safety guy explains how to load and hold the gun, how the target works and what to expect when firing. We set the target 25 feet off. I get the first two shots. Then Monica gets two. Safety guy gives me an early tip on straightening my aim, but otherwise we're off to the races. No weird adrenaline rushes, no newbie issues. Safety guy is pleased.
The video portion of our program…
Monica goes back for a second case of ammo. Counter guy, as Monica tells it: "Good day to be out here!" Monica, confused and glancing at the cloudy weather outside: "I guess so!" Counter guy: "No, with the Supreme Court gun ruling!" Bound to help the business? This blog, as usual, holds no politics. This blog only loves LivingSocial and days off.
After running through our two ammo boxes, we sweep up our casings, retrieve our poor target, scrub the black off our fingers, and turn in our equipment. We take photos in the Silver Eagle Group's parking lot with the target. Monica gives the target a decent name, but I forget it. The full pictures turn out too detachedly Bonnie-and-Clyde for posting here.
We drive back from Ashburn and stop for drinks at On the Border. We leave our target face-up in the back seat and order the big margaritas. We discuss dating, weekends, work, and what it was like to fire a gun.
June 28th, 2010 at 11:13 PM
Holy shit! (Can you curse on your blog?) Also, I like that the dude was up on his Supreme Court rulings.
June 29th, 2010 at 8:01 AM
[...] Gone shootin' » June 29, 2010 8:01 [...]
June 29th, 2010 at 8:08 AM
We should've asked him if he read the Nation section.
June 29th, 2010 at 10:36 AM
http://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/judge-of-the-day-joseph-r-carico-gives-up-his-honor-for-halo
You, a quasi-urbanite, actually went shooting. This judge went virtual shooting. It's a good day to read the internets.
June 29th, 2010 at 10:48 AM
I want Monica to yell, "freeze!" and then shake her head like Farah Faucet did on Charlie's Angels. Oh wait, you probably don't know what I'm talking about. :-(
Good times guys!
June 29th, 2010 at 10:55 AM
Does that make me Ponch?
June 29th, 2010 at 3:02 PM
[...] sweaty Colossus. Toppled, let the sand bury him and future generations forget his name. He survived the guns but not the aerobics, scribes would write. And nice older ladies ruled the [...]
July 5th, 2010 at 9:18 PM
[...] we were driving in our high-speed, beyond-the-airport go-karts. Bookending a week that began with a LivingSocial deal for shooting guns, the week ended with a LivingSocial deal for driving these high-speed [...]
August 1st, 2010 at 12:00 PM
[...] summer goal is complete. Shoot a gun, check. Take a cardio class, check. See the Crime Museum, check. Attend a dog party, check. Drive a [...]
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:07 AM
[...] not, right? Thank you, LivingSocial. Beyond all the meals this year, you've given me my first: pistol shooting, high-speed go-karts, bullpen ejections, and now zip-line, tree-top, tip-on-the-tightrope, [...]
March 6th, 2011 at 1:06 PM
[...] Monica is from Texas. That's why we shot guns together in June (via LivingSocial). That's also why her sister and brother-in-law donned hats and boots and [...]
August 21st, 2011 at 8:47 PM
[...] nervous than any deal adventure I'd had with guns, karts, bats, and heights, I took my first piano lesson ever today, via Groupon and [...]
August 28th, 2011 at 6:36 PM
[...] was altogether different for me but all-around fine. Yet I hesitated some when it came to posting the photos and video on this blog. The time period was the two weeks in between my departure at USA Today and arrival at [...]