Sunday, September 23, 2007

The Best Part of Being Me




So, I just can't lie about it. The best parts of my existence are my wife and my youngster. Here they are, glorious and beautiful as they can be. Having said that, I recount this tale of manipulation and treachery for all to see.... :-)

After I returned home and told the hunting tale in the previous post (with a good deal more theatrics and cursing...) and after the wife stopped laughing at me for being clumsy and getting older not as gracefully as she, the serious ridicule began.

"Let me see if I have this right," she said "A rifle that worked perfectly well from the factory wasn't good enough and you had to buy parts made of plastic" I try to interject 'ultralight carbon-fiber' in there but she says again, "Made of plastic. Right? Couldn't function without them. Right? Need the edge of light weight to maintain energy or some nonsense. Right?"

All I can do is say, head down, "Yes."

"Now it's broken? One fall and it's broken?" she asks more like a parent than I remember her and all I can say again is "Yes".

"So OK, superbrain-computer-nerd husband, let's skip over the whole why-the-hell-would-you-buy-plastic-parts-thing and go straight to the you-want-to-fix-it part. How much?"

She clearly far more worried about the cash than my emotional well being or the technical inaccuracy in her 'plastic parts' statement. The trauma of a blown hunt and my new favorite rifle being reduced to so much recyclable junk is just a non-issue for her. So, I play it cool and say..."$900.00". Of course it doesn't occur to me to be ready to dodge flying flatware and I have shirt with a fork shaped tear in it now. Dang it! Abort! Dive! Dive! Plan B! Tee it up and Go!

"Alright" I say, " I am not exactly sure. I think I can do it for $300 and I can sell one of the unused multitude of rifles in the cabinet to pay for it." This is what she wants to here. I have missed, again, the ploy to reduce the number of arms in our house and she has played me on a two-fer on this one. One squirrel rifle in the can (I am honestly unsure if the receiver is damaged as well. I need to check it more when I have $ and time) and one of my other must-haves sacrificed on the alter of financing the hunt of the mighty squirrel.

Ah well, the 270 I decided to cut loose is rifle I have owned for two years and never fired. Given the cost of keeping the youngster in our house, the out-of-state rifle hunt for anything appears many moons away. Besides, I sold it to a good friend. If I need it, I can borrow it.

Then I get to work. I get to build squirrel-slayer part deuce and the wife is happy about it. For the first time in a while I see that she gets it. Probably better than I do, she gets it and I love her for it. She could say things like "Get them all out of the house." or "No more hunting if I will be home alone with the kids." or "No more vacation time for hunting." but she doesn't. Instead all she says is, "If you have to fix it right now, you better not take it out of the checking account because the massage I would cancel is all that is keeping you from being impaled by that fork once a day." I like that.

So, I pinged up my buddies at Midway for a new Tactical Solutions matte green barrel and a new extractor. Then I set to work converting the action of one my two target 10/22's to be loaded for hunting. I found a good Nikon rimfire scope and mounted it. The other new parts are due to arrive tomorrow. I will be hunting by the weekend, new rifle in hand and a a pile of support for me at home. (Maybe not a pile but enough) Oh yeah, and no plastic parts....