THIRTY FIVE SQUIRRELS, 1 RABBIT, A MOSSBERG PUMP,

[tsubaki]

As normal it was a brisk January Sunday morning when me and Jay (my school age hunting and fishing buddy) headed to the woods to go hunting. Naturally being bored on the way to the woods we would prepare for rabbits on the side of the road while being ever present to the possibility of deer on the way by having one gun loaded with buckshot and one with birdshot. Well this particular morning Jay put in to drive his step fathers truck (which I was more than happy to ride shotgun instead of getting blood in my car) but it was so cold and the animals didn’t cooperate so we went to the woods edge and parked the truck to wait on daylight. Now Jay was left handed, so his mother bought him a Mossberg shotgun that had the safety on the rear of the stock. However he couldn’t remember which way was safe & fire, so he would lightly squeeze the trigger to see if it moved and if it did switch it the other way. In the truck, sitting at the edge of the woods I had now dosed off and then heard a muffled BOOM. I rolled the window down and said “Jay, somebody’s already out there and shooting”, looking to my left he’s fumbling with his gun. I asked, “what happened?” and he replied “the gun went off!” my natural response is “yeah with your finger on the trigger!”. Well the gun barrel (after blowing a hole through the floor board and transmission bell housing) had slid into the opening and lodged in the flywheel location. After a few minutes we were able to remove the new 12- gauge floor shifter. Jay asked “what’ll we do now?”. My only concern was to get back to the house or at least to a paved road for help. “You better see if this thing will move, cause we’re 8 miles from home and it’s 25 degrees outside”. Cranking it up sounded like a handful of coins in the clothes drier but it got us to the paved road. Now daylight we could see no evident damage, once the buckshot and metal rolling around in the bell housing fell out. “My step dad’s going to kill us” he said. *“Us??- your finger- your gun-us??” was my response. But now worried about me I said “just pull the carpet back in place, he won’t see the hole till he changes the clutch, plus he might sell the truck before then and don’t breath a word to anybody”. * *(more to come)

[tsubaki]

“Well Jay, now it’s good daylight and if we go home this early they’ll know something’s up, so what’ll we do?” Jay said “you remember John?, well his grandfather has some property with lots of squirrels, let’s see if we can talk him into us going there”. We pick up John and his single shot 22 and head to his grandfathers woods. Me and Jay quickly run out of the handful of shells we’ve got. “Now what’ll we do Jay? The hardware store ain’t open on Sunday, we’re out of shells and squirrels are everywhere”. *Jay said, “Ricky’s dad shoots skeet and reloads, I know they got birdshot”. On to Ricky’s we go. Once there, Ricky puts in to go with us and to show off his skeet grade Remington 1100 he just got. While waiting for Jay to return to the truck, I was looking at the reloaded shells and found one that had not been filled with shot. Jay always bragging about how good a shot he is, I couldn’t help myself. “Hey John and Ricky, I’m going to put this dud in Jay’s gun and lets ragg him about missing”. They agreed. Not having enough room for 4 people and guns in the front of the truck, John volunteered to ride in the back with the guns, well except Ricky with his new shotgun. So Jay’s driving, I’m in the middle, Ricky’s cradling his baby and John’s in the back, on to the woods we go. (still more)

[reelapeelin]

Cheney and your friend need to hunt together... ;D ...

[tsubaki]

In the woods a squirrel jumps and runs up a tree and all three of us holler “get him Jay!!”, when he pulls the trigger all we heard was slight pop. Not checking the gun and before anyone could warn him, Jay reloads and shoots. The explosion tore a 1 by 6 inch gash out of the right side of the barrel just forward of the chamber. Some reason Jay decided to shoot right handed and none of us were on that side of him either, (God does look out after drunks and damn fools) so the shrapnel did no physical damage to any of us. More than angry Jay threw down the gun, stomped around cussing, kicking trees etc., etc., naturally none of us are going to volunteer what happened and now not having fun without a gun Jay’s ready to go home and he’s the driver of this motley crew. Ricky decides that Jay can shoot one of his old guns from the house, so back to the truck we go. As we load up in the truck, Jay throws his gun in the bed of the truck, John gets in the back and holds mine and his gun, Ricky gets in the center of the seat with his gun , I’m riding shotgun and Jay’s driving. Now me and Jay ain’t told anybody about the hole in the floorboard from this morning and apparently Ricky’s gun barrel had slid down the hole and contacted the flywheel as Jay hit the ignition switch.
(trying to finish this)

[tsubaki]

The next scene is even more unbelievable than the day’s event. With the three of us in the truck, this gun comes to life, running around in circles with the butt beating Ricky with every rotation. We bail out the truck (even John in the bed of the truck), only to realize Ricky is almost incoherent from the beating he’s getting. “Shut the truck off Jay!” I scream. “Hell no, I ain’t getting in there with all that going on”, was his response. I finally made the way to the key and shut the engine off. Once Ricky came around naturally he too was mad and ready to go home. That day we shot 35 squirrels, 1 rabbit, a Ford pickup truck and tore up a Mossberg and Remington shotgun. I think John stayed in shock, because that was the first and last invitation we all got from him. Jay’s stepfather did sell the truck shortly after that and don’t believe he was the wiser. Jay’s mother sent the barrel to Mossberg and some reason they sent a new one. Ricky just sawed the barrel off a couple of inches and put a new sight on it. I ran across Jay and Ricky about twenty years after the fact while hunting and till that day Jay was none the wiser about the dud. The amazing part is not just the fact we all survived our adolescence but so did everyone that we came in contact with. God helped us all (a lot)

[tsubaki]

Sorry guy's, I'm getting old, I felt the need to confess my sins (well only one of them) of adolescence.