Gone Shooting

There are rumors abroad (because rumors are always abroad, not drinking lemonade in your living room; after all, we're all far too kind and wise and whatever to let rumor into the house) that my father, the Principal, is taciturn.

Untrue. Just this last Saturday, I heard him and a friend from church, who is also 'taciturn' talking like girls. Chatter chatter chatter. The small talk questions came, fast and furious:

"Is that what I think it is? I've read about those. What's the range like? Where/when did you get it? How much did you pay? What are they laws on those? What do you think of Gibberish model? My son is in Iraq, and he's using a Technical Gobbledygook; when he was home on leave I got to try it out, and I'm telling you, it was sweet. You want to try mine? I've got an extra clip. It's lots of fun, you'll have a hard time stopping once you start. Did you hear about so-and-so's slide-bite? He had a big chunk torn right out of his hand. Yeah, I saw it the next day; it was quite impressive. That's a good grouping you've got there. How much do you keep in your clips? It holds seven but I stop at five on general be kind to the spring principles. When do they close? How much is membership? Such-and-such an amount for the whole family, but you have to belong to Acronym. I've had this for twenty years. It sounds like a staplegun." And as we drove away from the range: "We shot three times as many rounds as anyone else there, and it probably cost four dollars to do it. We should do this again sometime."

So you see, my dad is not taciturn. They talk more than I do when it's about guns and related subjects. And that's a lot of talking.

If anyone ever holds my dad up at gunpoint he'll probably compliment them on the make and ask what dealer they got it from and how much they pay for ammo.