Story Time... With Explosions

I was inspired recently. Well, maybe 'inspired' isn't really the word I'm looking for. It's more like 'reminded.'

I was reminded recently. (There, that's better). Reminded because of this post on Abra's blog which deals with a creative way to exterminate household pests. No, don't worry, no animals were harmed in the formation of this story. Just some tree stumps.

See, Albany is a fairly popular destination for the folks in Northern and Western NY (you know, everything north of The City), which means we get our fair share of rugged mountain folk from the surrounding highlands. Live in the city long enough, you end up becoming friends with a few of them. Mostly by accident.

A few of these friends can best be described as "assault rifle enthusiasts." They're completely normal people, they just happen to have high-powered semi-automatic weapons laying around the house (and for all of you who just gasped at that last statement, it's OK-- most of the time, at least from what I can tell, the safety is on).

I paid a visit to the childhood home of one of these friends once. There was probably a few dozen of us down there, mostly to grill out in the woods and throw down a few cases of cheap beer. Before the drinking started though, my buddy offered to go fire a few rounds in the woods near where we were staying. Perfectly safe, we were pointed downhill into a valley so there wasn't any chance of a stray bullet landing in somebody's abdomen. Thank god. I'm from the suburbs. This isn't exactly something I do everyday.

Actually, it's something I do pretty much never. But that was all to change.

I received a brief safety lesson-- which was rather difficult given that we were wearing the noise-reducing headphones-- and a live demonstration of the raw power of what turned out to be the same model firearm that the DC sniper used (and as an aside, I wasn't too sure I'd be telling people that if I were him... it seemed rather morbid and a little, well, inconsiderate... but I digress).

He set up a few logs about 50 yards away and started firing. Took about 3 shots to take the sucker completely down. I did the same thing, and after a few "warm-up" shots, accomplished the same feat. I found that the hours of playing "Duck Hunt" on the NES really payed off, which is pretty scary when you think about it.

Next, he set up a bunch of small boulders in the same spot. "Won't that ricochet?" I asked.

The look he gave me was somewhat of a cross between "What are you, retarded?" and "Just watch this shit... WOOOOOO!" I'm not sure how else to describe that look. I guess you had to be there. Well, moral of the story is, at that caliber, there was definitely no ricochet.

Hell, there wasn't even any rock by the time he pulled off 4 rounds.

The fun ended soon after that (ammo doesn't grow on trees, you know), so we went back to the party and helped tap the keg. At that point, all weapons were safely locked away.

I mean, we may be crazy. But we're not stupid.

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