THAT TIME MY MOTHER SORT OF SHOT MY BABY SISTER
Disclaimer: Another true story from my youth, unrelated to poker chips. No babies were actually shot, and this story took about four decades to finally be funny.
Another trip back to the 1970s, when I was growing up in an idyllic small town in the suburbs of Philadelphia. We lived in an area officially known as "Delaware County," "Delco" for short, where people talked funny and ate "hoagies." (What, exactly, is a "submarine sandwich?") If you watched "Mare of Eastown," on HBO, these are my people. I think I lost my Delco accent, but occasionally my wife will mock me with one or two specific words.
Unlike today, we only heard fireworks on two days each year -- the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve. On those days, each little town around Philly would usually have a fireworks display in a park when it got dark. Private citizens would also get into the act with their own fireworks. They were puny compared to what's available today, but even they were always at least technically illegal. You had to know somebody -- usually somebody shady -- to get any good fireworks. And the big "M-80s?" Those were really hard to get. Go overboard, and the police would pull up in front of your house and confiscate your fireworks.
My family never had fireworks, a fact that I'm sure relates directly to my ability to type this story today with all ten fingers.
The pistol:
We didn't really need fireworks. My father owned a starter's pistol. It looked exactly like a Smith & Wesson .38-cal revolver, but the barrel was filled in with solid metal. Nothing was ever shooting out of the front of that weapon. It made noise when the hammer struck caps on the cylinder, so it was exceptionally safe. On the Fourth or New Year's, Dad would shoot the blank pistol, pointing it up in the air, outside of our house. Never inside, and never pointing it at anyone.
In 1972, I was about nine years old. My sister, Trish, was around five.
The incident:
One day, my sister was in her room. My mother was cleaning in an adjacent bedroom. She was always cleaning. But today, she happened to find my dad's starter's pistol in a drawer. On a lark, and being silly, she called out to my sister, pointed the blank pistol at her and pulled the trigger.
She expected a click. It didn't click.
I heard the loud "bang," and then my sister crying. I rushed to her room. My mother was apologizing profusely, hugging my little sister and telling her again and again that it was a harmless cap gun that could never hurt her.
"What's the big deal?" I thought. We played "Army" all the time, and had toy guns that could today be mistaken for real .45-cal. semi-automatics. I must have fake-shot my little sister at least a dozen times. She was a pain in the ass. In short order, I got tired of the whole drama and went outside, where I no doubt played with a fake .45, a full-size metal replica of an M-16 that looked like it did two tours in Vietnam, and a couple of dummy hand grenades.
The whole thing was smoothed over in short order, and my sister was fine. Or so I thought.
Fast forward about forty years. I was having dinner with my wife, my sister and brother-in-law. We were telling funny stories of growing up, sharing them with our spouses. My sister said, "We sure did have a lot of crazy things happen!"
"Yes ," I said, "like that time Mom shot you with the blank gun."
"What?" she said. Her eyes were wide, and the color was rushing from her face.
"Yea," I said. "Don't you remember it? Mom shot you with Dad's blank gun.."
There was a pause.
"Mom told me I dreamt that!" she said.
My wife chimed in. "OH MY GOD!" she said.
I thought I better shut up.
"Oh my God," my sister said, echoing my wife's shock. "My mother SHOT me!"
I was about to protest, to defend Mom, to remind my sister that it was, in fact, a blank gun, and she wasn't actually "shot." I tried to speak.
"Ah, er, but ehhhh. blah blah..." I think I said.
But it was too late. My sister was on her cell phone like the smoke from the gunshot was still fresh in the air. I heard my mother answer.
"Hello?"
"YOU SHOT ME!" Trish yelled.
Mom didn't ask who was calling. The "you shot me" gave it away. The cat was out of the bag. Four decades removed from the scene of the crime, my sister was picking up where she left off when she was five. Forget that it was a blank gun. Trish acted like she took a slug to the liver.
Thankfully, this time, after giving my mom sufficient grief, she could laugh about it. We certainly did.
Disclaimer: Another true story from my youth, unrelated to poker chips. No babies were actually shot, and this story took about four decades to finally be funny.
Another trip back to the 1970s, when I was growing up in an idyllic small town in the suburbs of Philadelphia. We lived in an area officially known as "Delaware County," "Delco" for short, where people talked funny and ate "hoagies." (What, exactly, is a "submarine sandwich?") If you watched "Mare of Eastown," on HBO, these are my people. I think I lost my Delco accent, but occasionally my wife will mock me with one or two specific words.
Unlike today, we only heard fireworks on two days each year -- the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve. On those days, each little town around Philly would usually have a fireworks display in a park when it got dark. Private citizens would also get into the act with their own fireworks. They were puny compared to what's available today, but even they were always at least technically illegal. You had to know somebody -- usually somebody shady -- to get any good fireworks. And the big "M-80s?" Those were really hard to get. Go overboard, and the police would pull up in front of your house and confiscate your fireworks.
My family never had fireworks, a fact that I'm sure relates directly to my ability to type this story today with all ten fingers.
The pistol:
We didn't really need fireworks. My father owned a starter's pistol. It looked exactly like a Smith & Wesson .38-cal revolver, but the barrel was filled in with solid metal. Nothing was ever shooting out of the front of that weapon. It made noise when the hammer struck caps on the cylinder, so it was exceptionally safe. On the Fourth or New Year's, Dad would shoot the blank pistol, pointing it up in the air, outside of our house. Never inside, and never pointing it at anyone.
In 1972, I was about nine years old. My sister, Trish, was around five.
The incident:
One day, my sister was in her room. My mother was cleaning in an adjacent bedroom. She was always cleaning. But today, she happened to find my dad's starter's pistol in a drawer. On a lark, and being silly, she called out to my sister, pointed the blank pistol at her and pulled the trigger.
She expected a click. It didn't click.
I heard the loud "bang," and then my sister crying. I rushed to her room. My mother was apologizing profusely, hugging my little sister and telling her again and again that it was a harmless cap gun that could never hurt her.
"What's the big deal?" I thought. We played "Army" all the time, and had toy guns that could today be mistaken for real .45-cal. semi-automatics. I must have fake-shot my little sister at least a dozen times. She was a pain in the ass. In short order, I got tired of the whole drama and went outside, where I no doubt played with a fake .45, a full-size metal replica of an M-16 that looked like it did two tours in Vietnam, and a couple of dummy hand grenades.
The whole thing was smoothed over in short order, and my sister was fine. Or so I thought.
Fast forward about forty years. I was having dinner with my wife, my sister and brother-in-law. We were telling funny stories of growing up, sharing them with our spouses. My sister said, "We sure did have a lot of crazy things happen!"
"Yes ," I said, "like that time Mom shot you with the blank gun."
"What?" she said. Her eyes were wide, and the color was rushing from her face.
"Yea," I said. "Don't you remember it? Mom shot you with Dad's blank gun.."
There was a pause.
"Mom told me I dreamt that!" she said.
My wife chimed in. "OH MY GOD!" she said.
I thought I better shut up.
"Oh my God," my sister said, echoing my wife's shock. "My mother SHOT me!"
I was about to protest, to defend Mom, to remind my sister that it was, in fact, a blank gun, and she wasn't actually "shot." I tried to speak.
"Ah, er, but ehhhh. blah blah..." I think I said.
But it was too late. My sister was on her cell phone like the smoke from the gunshot was still fresh in the air. I heard my mother answer.
"Hello?"
"YOU SHOT ME!" Trish yelled.
Mom didn't ask who was calling. The "you shot me" gave it away. The cat was out of the bag. Four decades removed from the scene of the crime, my sister was picking up where she left off when she was five. Forget that it was a blank gun. Trish acted like she took a slug to the liver.
Thankfully, this time, after giving my mom sufficient grief, she could laugh about it. We certainly did.
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