My brother and I used to have BB gun fights in our backyard. We fired hundreds of BBs at each other, but despite our best efforts, never managed to strike flesh. Looking back now, I'm amazed we each have two eyes to look back with. Our mother, of course, never knew of these battles. I am mistaken when I say we never struck flesh. My brother proved he was not such a miserable marksman after all when he fired at our cousin Sharon while she was hanging clothes on the line. She was stung, like Forrest Gump, on the buttocks, and like Forrest Gump, did something heroic. She chased my brother around the house, disarmed him, and wacked his BB gun against an elm tree until it was unrepairable, thus ending the BB gun wars. What brought this long ago incident to mind was an even longer ago incident of similar circumstance, but different outcome, described in the Oxford Democrat. Sep 28th, 1897 SOUTH PARIS: Master Don Briggs is wearing a wounded countenance, the result of careless target practice by a playmate with that twin evil to the toy gun - the air gun. A careless shot from the gun buried itself so deeply in the flesh of his face that it was necessary to employ a surgeon and a dose of ether to extract it. Had the shot struck a little higher, the loss of an eye would have resulted. The careless use of toy firearms is almost as dangerous as the same use of the "grown up" kind and the practice of allowing small boys to shoot them at random cannot be too strongly condemned. Amen.
Life is Like a Box of BBs