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Me and the gun
November 27, 2006My mother calls me at work distraught. During my parents' move into a new house in Clay County where my mom teaches school, she had misplaced a few key items.
"I can't find the skirt patterns," she said.
My mom is an ace behind the sewing machine, something I and my five younger sisters have taken full advantage of, especially now that we're old enough to pick out our own material. (Painful flashback to many, many, many embarrassing years of colorful, flower-laden Easter dresses.)
About two years ago, Mom cut out some handmade skirt patterns for Sister No. 3 and me. These came in handy any time we would find some cool material. We could mail it back to her and, in a few weeks, have a brand new, perfectly-fitted skirt sent to us in the mail.
But during my parents move this summer, the skirt patterns were misplaced.
The horror.
"Oh, and I can't find the gun either," Mom continued.
Yep, that's right. Skirt patterns rank higher than finding misplaced weapons in our household.
***
Mom calls about two weeks after the first missing patterns/gun incident.
I'm at work, sitting at my desk.
At work, mind you.
"Lara, when you get a second -- and there's no rush -- could you go outside and look in your car and see if there's a gun underneath the front seat?"
Seems Mom remembered she put the gun in a car -- so it wouldn't get lost -- but she just doesn't know which vehicle.
Maybe it's mine.
I excuse myself from the newsroom and slyly go looking for a gun in my car.
I turn up empty.
***
Mom calls me again at work in early September.
"We found the patterns," she exclaims. "And the gun."
The patterns were in a box that had been placed in the storage unit instead of the sewing nook.
The gun was another story. It was hidden in a box full of ribbons and other knick-knacks in the trunk of Sister No. 4's car.
The car that I had driven to work for all of August.
Apparently, I had been parking a car with a loaded pistol in its trunk on Times Record News property for a month.
If I've told my bosses once, I've told them a thousand times: Don't mess with a country girl 'cuz you never know when a weapon might turn up.
Posted by Lara Richards at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
