Baddy Shooting School

You have probably not heard about this before as it is something my husband came up with – ‘Baddy Shooting School’.

            We are currently watching the second season of ‘Reacher’ on Netflix. Whereas the film got it wrong Reacher-wise with wee Tommy Cruise, not known for his height, playing Reacher, who is well over 6ft tall in the books, this Reacher is a big guy. The body count in the books is quite high as Reacher doesn’t trust the justice system to do the right thing. However, when confronted with gun wielding baddies and very much outnumbered, he mostly comes off unscathed. That’s because, says my husband, the baddies went to baddy shooting school. The amount of bullets spent might be impressive but they never hit the target. So many bullets and not one hits Reacher, or his pals.

            I watched ‘Paycheck’ the other day. It is a second time watching but it was a while since the first sitting, or just maybe I hadn’t watched it but I had read the book. Whatever, it was a jolly good romp. I don’t know whether the science plays out as possible, but I don’t watch these things for the science, and I am gullible so it doesn’t matter.

            A time machine that lets you glimpse the future needs to be blown up. Mankind can only think of ways of using such technology for evil purposes, sadly. So, there are the two heroes trying to shut the machine down and there’s a hail of bullets keeping them trapped. Baddy shooting school. The odds of not being hit when a machine gun fills the air with bullets has got to be nigh impossible – and yet, the heroes live to dismantle the machine and escape through a window that shatters into a million pieces. They don’t end up with cuts either.

            Life as we know doesn’t have a baddy shooting school. Bullets hit their targets and it’s not always the ones shot from a gun either. No one escapes.

            I could look up the date if I felt inclined. It was before Christmas and before the church Christmas Carol Service. I got the wrong week, a week early, and my husband came along expecting to be thoroughly ‘carolised’. After the meeting we walked across the road to pick up newspapers and other sundries. The woman behind the counter had a bad cold, bad enough to knock out the vocal chords. As the shop owner she couldn’t just close shop and go back to bed with a Lemsip. The next day I had a tickly throat and runny nose and over the week things turned bad. I did not go to bed with a Lemsip but sat on the sofa with one dosed liberally with whisky. There used to be days when a cold lasted three days. Three weeks later and well into a second bottle of whisky, I was still in there with the tissue piles and the throat pastilles. And then my ears clogged up. Not the best way to end a year or begin the next one.

            Is there anyway to escape the bullets?

            My husband had a favourite saying. There was a whiteboard at work and the office staff were encouraged to write motivating messages. My husband’s choice? ‘No one moves. No one gets hurt’. It is not really his philosophy, but perhaps hunkering down and staying put is one way to escape the bullets. Just build a wall and stay behind it. Living risk free has its alure, but as Frannie’s granny said in the film ‘Strickley Ballroom’ a life that is half lived is not a life lived at all.

            Another response to the bullets is a pre-emptive strike. You hit first and hit fast. Ask questions later. I had dealings with someone who didn’t fire bullets, or bacteria but a stream of negativity. Revenge was always there in the forefront of the mind and the determination to not let anyone ‘get away with it’. For the most part I wasn’t the cause but no amount of reasoned argument would be heeded. When I was the cause, I fell into being defensive and retaliating, insult for insult. I really did not like the person I was becoming. I wanted to help but I was becoming a bit battered and bruised. I have since heard someone talking about the need to ‘garrison the heart.’ I wasn’t mindful enough of the injuries being inflicted, from either end of the engagement. As Cliff Richard sings – ‘We don’t talk anymore.’

            I would not have got through my bad cold, my sand-paper throat, my blocked nose or my stuffed-up ears without help. There is that bit in the marriage vows, ‘in sickness and in health’ that my husband took seriously. And I think that is what we do when the bullets hit. We need to be looked after.

            My husband caught the bacteria bullet too and we were down to the last sachet of Lemsip. I think he had the last one and I made up some elaborate concoction with a herbal teabag, honey and whisky. A friend sent her husband round to the shop to buy us another box, and included oranges, grapes, bread, biscuits and chocolate in the care parcel.

            We can’t avoid the bullets but we can ask for help, and look out for one another and find ways to show we care.