Target Practice
Posted 12/20/2007
The average Joe on Roi-Namur is not allowed to have a weapon. Nor is the average Eric, Matt, or Glenn. I mention those names because just about every man and maybe one or two women on Roi have one of those names. It makes it a little easier to remember names. There was one Glenn on Roi who was allowed a weapon, a Marshallese police officer known at the station as the “Real Glenn” as opposed to me who was generally known as 2NGlenn because of my neurotic insistence that my name be spelled correctly though I was also called “Off-road Glenn” by at least one guy for an incident on Pohnpei involving a chicken and a rent a car. But I digress, and for a good reason, the story I am about to tell you has virtually nothing to do with Roi-Namur other than the guy who told it to me once had a friend who lived on Roi (me).
My friend whom I will refer to as Russell told me over lunch today that his nephew recently passed the red neck test. Naturally, being a city born Yankee, I asked him how one passes a red neck test and Russell who is from east Texas related the following story. First he noted that one should always be concerned when a red neck asks you to hold his beer and you should be down right afraid, apprehensive, beside oneself, bothered, clutched, distracted, distraught, distressed, disturbed, fearful, fretful, frightened, hung up*, ill-at-ease, nervous, on edge*, overwrought, perturbed, solicitous, tense, tormented, troubled, uneasy, upset, uptight, worried stiff* if he follows that up with “watch this.” In his nephew’s case it turns out that at a recent routine doctor’s visit the doctor found a bee-bee lodged in his groin. This explained the very visible pain he was in but not how he entered that state. If I got the story right, the nephew had told his mother that he fell while out in the woods and a piece of metal had somehow broke off and stuck there. But it is difficult to explain the presence of a bee-bee. So he finally admitted the truth. His friends were using his belt buckle for target practice. I know cowboys wear large buckles but I can’t believe I could ever be comfortable with the idea of letting someone take pot shots at a belt I was wearing no matter how large the buckle. But I’m a Yankee and a bit of a coward and perfectly sober at the moment so perhaps all those factors make me look at it a bit differently. I am certain that if I did consent to allowing my belt to be used for target practice I would take it off first. Russell did not mention if his nephew had been drinking with Dick Cheney at the time.
Technorati Tags: target practice, red neck, Texas, Texan, gun, beer, belt, worried, Marshall Islands, Kwajalein, Roi, Roi-Namur, Micronesia, travel
One Response to “Target Practice”
 Comment by Richard Jones December 21st, 2007 at 10:43 am |
I like to think that it is stories like this that are causing the traffic surge at Roi Rat Journal… even I was never dumb enoguh to try something like this!!! |