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SALT LAKE CITY — My wife wants to buy a gun, and I am inclined to stay out of her way.
Lest you get the wrong impression, she is kind and gracious. Yelling is not her style.
Yes, she gets the attention of base runners from behind the plate, or hollers encouragement to the girls in church volleyball. Once, I heard her practically screech when she spotted a youngster in the road, but that’s about it for noise.
When she gets angry, there is no sound at all. One can hear a pin dropping in a tabernacle several miles to the north.
I call it frosted fire. She gets a glimmer in her eyes and her pupils enlarge like silent movie Dracula.
The effect frosted fire has on the atmosphere is not immediately noticeable. Currents of air move moisture particles in the clouds, and layers of ice form around that nucleus. At that time, it is advisable to hole-up in a door frame or under a heavy desk or table.
(Not that the occasional hail has anything to do with gun ownership — utterly silly for me to put those two completely separate, often mutually exclusive thoughts together. If anything, the reverse is true; she is calm: she shoots, she scores.)
Frankly, I don't think a firearm for (my wife) is necessary, because I know that if one messes with her family — or anyone who is not able to defend themselves — she will take off one's head and FedEx it to one's mother in time for holiday delivery.
Frankly, I don’t think a firearm for her is necessary, because I know that if one messes with her family — or anyone who is not able to defend themselves — she will take off one's head and FedEx it to one's mother in time for holiday delivery.
At this point in the narrative, I have to mention Jimmer Fredette, who, in limited minutes playing has been shooting a respectable 41.3 percent from deep, which places him 19th in the NBA in 3-point percentage. I mention this so that I can answer, when my wife asks, that “No, I didn’t write about you for the entire column! Sheesh.”
Honestly, just thinking about having a gun in the house makes me sweat bullets. My youngest son, when he was 3 years old, came walking out of his grandpa’s bedroom one Sunday afternoon with a rifle in his hands, and the gun was taller than he was.
It was not my wife but me who screamed like a little girl.
In a pinch, if there is an intruder who is … intruding and stuff, it would take me too long to remember where I put the key to the gun safe. And if I have time to find the key (hours ... days), then my action is premeditated and not defensive, and that could open several hermetically sealed containers that I never want to deal with.
One thing is certain — I will not be the guy to “Van Damme” myself through dangerous situations. My days of six-pack abs and intimidating physically are over. (There were three of them — days and abs.)
#gun_poll
If my life were a TV show, I would be Gilligan or Barney Fife, not Magnum PI or Hunter. I am the pec-less wonder, the comic-relief that sings and gets the Scooby snack. I don't pack.
Not so for a friend of my wife/neighbor of ours who has three boys and two guns. “I am a woman alone with a family to protect. You bet I have licensed firearms,” she said. (She is a lawyer, not a vigilante, I mention parenthetically). She is the kind to remember where she put the key to the safe.
So is my wife. She has mentioned looking for a gun twice in as many weeks. Is she serious? Now that push has gone to shove, do I say, "sure, honey," and throw out a “We’ll have to be on the lookout for a nice one” every once in a while with no intention to act?
Or do I act? Do I look up weapons training and gun classes online?
If tomorrow were the Zombie apocalypse — and by that I mean that Democrats take over — I would rather wield a baseball bat. I would be the one slinging arrows — kind-of tossing them at foes, rather, because my son broke my bow playing street hockey. I would be the one manning the shovel, the hedge clippers, or practicing the art of strategic rock-throwing.
I would be camped out in a tree or on stilts because zombies and Democrats, from what I have seen on TV, avoid higher ground.
Anyway, who needs a gun, unless you are one to believe all this about Second Amendment rights, and rights in general being placed on future chopping blocks? At that point, there may be many who will want to familiarize themselves with guns — lock, stock and you-know — if only to tell the people protectors/freedom takers in which direction they can start their hike.
With all this bluster and self focus, it dawns on me that my wife’s decision to get a gun is my wife’s decision, not mine. She has that right, and agree with her or not (as long as she follows the law), she decides for herself.
Only time will tell if I am married to a “Gilmore Girl” or one of “Charlie’s Angels.”
Regardless, I will stand by her — or in the tree next to her — brandishing a bat and hedge clippers.
*
Davison Cheney writes "The Prodigal Dad" series every week on ksl.com. Please do not call Davison's wife to offer her a deal on a gun. Do check out his other writings at davisoncheneymegadad.blogspot.com.*
