I Shot the Sheriff for My Birthday
Today I turn 33. Unlike my 30th birthday, this day is not filled with dread, fear and loathing. I’ve embraced my age; and while I have not embraced my body, I know that I am in a position to change it. Unlike the morning of my 30th birthday, I know for a fact that I will never give birth to another child ever again in LIFE, so an impending pregnancy will not negate the hard work I previously had put into getting fit again.
This weekend, my husband gave me the best gift that anyone has ever given me: And that is the gift of sending my children to someone else’s home for 24 full hours. It tops every diamond he’s ever bought me, every out of town trip I’ve been on – it even tops my 12th birthday when my dad took me and my friends flying in his Cessna. On Saturday morning, I woke up, stretched, listened to the silence and got back under the covers. No one needed me.
45 minutes later I got up and peed without an audience. I took a leisurely shower without my son opening the curtain and asking me in toddler-speak if I was having a bath.
“Ba-ba-bath?” he usually asks, pointing to the water.
“Yes Stone. Please close the curtain so the water doesn’t get on the floor baby.”
“Ba-ba-bath!” he generally cries, flinging his plastic bath toys in at me as I shower.
There was none of that today. I turned up the water pressure and lost myself in the pleasure of washing my hair uninterrupted. I then got back in bed and proceeded to engage in a 2 hour 3-way call with my brother and sister.
“Hey Adj,” I said excitedly when she picked up the phone. “What do you hear?”
“Uhhh…nothing?” She was confused.
“Exactly! Nothing!”
My brother appreciated the silence the most. Customarily, he will excuse himself abruptly when the background volume is too loud (and aggravating) with the whining and crying of my loin fruit.
After we gabbed about everything from video games, to 80s movies, to weed (weed always makes its way into the conversation), my battery died and I got up to get ready to go to a bridal shower themed around the nectar of the gods – wine.
Two hours after my intended departure time from the drunk-fest, Marshall and one of my best friends, Toyah, ferried me to the Sandy Springs Gun club to fire off a few rounds. I’ve always wanted to shoot a gun, just to say I have. Marshall and Toyah chose to shoot a Glock 9mm and I had a 22mm Dirty Harry looking-ish gun. (I don’t know what it was. I was still giggly from the wine tasting and could only focus on one task. That task was shooting, not listening about what I was shooting).
Marshall, ever the purist, chose a black silhouette as his paper target. Toyah chose Osama bin Laden and I fired at a decrepit zombie chick. Upon firing my first 12 bullets, I sobered up rather quickly. The banging echo of each round fired pounded against my eardrums. The smell of gun smoke from the chamber stung my nostrils, and the kick back from the Glock nearly tore my wrist out of socket. You know how gangsters just go running through the street with their gun tilted to the side firing on rival gang members? Do you know what kind of physical shape you have to be in to accomplish that? Clearly I will never be a gangster. There’s a reason they all lift weights in the backyard and suck on 40 ounces for nutrition. You have to be out of your mind to devote your mind and body to that level of dedication.
So I didn’t really shoot the ‘sheriff’, for my birthday…I shot the ‘zombie’. And then I passed out after a nutritious dinner of pasta, cheesecake, coffee and 2 hours on the Kinect.
Best birthday ever!
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