When I
was 15 years old I was delighted to discover that two of my cousins, who were brothers,
had received brand new shotguns as Christmas presents. These cousins were aged 16 and 14.
I
thought, “This is fantastic! What a
stroke of good fortune. This clearly
sets a precedent for the type of Christmas presents that can be expected within
our larger family circle.”
I
promptly informed my dad that I would love to get a shotgun for Christmas.
After
he looked at me as if I had 3 heads and each of the three heads were
illuminated with hair that was on fire, he said, “No, you can’t have a shotgun.”
I said,
“Marcus and Thomas got shotguns for Christmas, this year. I’m basically the same age they are, in fact,
I’m older than Thomas.”
My dad
said, “They live in rural Mississippi.
They have lots of wide open space and everybody hunts down there. It’s a normal activity. You live in Chicago. I can’t have you walking around with a
shotgun.”
I
wanted to say, “Technically we live in the suburbs, not the city proper, and
right across the street from our house is wide open forest preserve property
which would be just perfect for some shotgun shooting.” But a) I never talked back to my dad in that
way, since I valued life; and b) it was beginning to dawn on me that my dad was
not going to recognize this Christmas present precedent as applicable to our
situation. So, I didn’t say anything
further about the shotgun request.
I got socks
for Christmas, that year.
I put a
couple of 12 gauge shells in the socks but I guess it’s no surprise that they
didn’t fire.
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