My very own A Christmas Story

While mine wasn't an official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle, I once lived like Ralphie Parker. I was around the same age as the movie's main character when I got my Daisy Air Rifle from my parents. I too, heeded warnings similar to the classic, "You'll shoot your eye out."

While my eye was never in much danger, my brother, Ira, did injure me. When our parents were away, the rifle always found its way out of our parent's bedroom, where it was held for "safe keeping." When shooting targets or invading property rodents got boring, Ira decided to chase me around the house with the rifle. While he often threatened to shoot, he never did. Until one fateful day, when his finger pulled too far.

The Daisy model shot both pellets and BB's, but we were not big fans of the former. Pellets didn't ricochet off the wall like a BB did. Ricochet is exactly what the BB did that day. It bounced off several of our walls, leading me to believe that I was safe, until I felt the stinging pain in my left calf. The BB lodged itself in my leg, leaving a perfect circle in its place. Blood trickled down and onto the brown linoleum kitchen floor. The sudden shift in situation stopped us both in our tracks.

I shrieked in pain, while Ira dropped the rifle and ran to my side. He examined my wound and declared that I was overreacting.

"Stop being a sissy," he insisted, "don't be a baby about this."

"It hurts, you big jerk," I countered. "I'm injured for life."

He wiped the blood off of my leg with his dirty fingers and quickly popped the BB out of my leg. The shock quickly wore and we both started laughing.

It's what we did. One of us (mostly me) would get hurt during a scuffle, it would stop our shenanigans, and we'd bust out laughing (don't deny it, Ira...remember the pulled thumb incident).

We never mentioned the BB incident to our parents. They would have taken the rifle away from me. And when Frederic asks me if he can have an air rifle, I am certain my response will be, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."