Saturday, October 30, 2010

Shades of Gray

Some of the people I work with are knuckle-dragging gun lovers. Some are gun owners who think they own “politically safe” firearms which have never and will never be targeted by the Brady Bunch………..I should probably mention here that I have queried them and they don’t even know what the Brady Campaign is……….and that makes me giggle like a school girl every time.

Some of me peers are total neutrals who ask me to appraise firearms their relatives own, and some are antis.

I’ve worked at my current company for the last 15 years and with my current team for the last 7 years and there is one that I just couldn’t identify……….until today.

Play along if you wish, I’ll stick to the highlights…

1. She’s a Buddhist of Indian decent. No, not Native American, but from India.
2. She’s a STRICT vegan. No meat, no diary, no eggs, no butter, no flavor. She occasionally eats stuff with sugar in it but complains loudly as she does it.
3. Her marriage was “arranged” by her parents based on the numerology of the viable candidates.
4. She has taken a pledge to personally save the entire planet from imminent doom by recycling EVERYTHING. Here’s a little hint; we all work in a Research & Development chemical lab and cross contamination can ruin years of work but she still recycles EVERYTHING. Right now, she has been tasked with replicating some of the findings I found 12 months ago. Thank god for lab notebooks; I’ll have to go back and recreate what I made when Obama was still popular just to show that my lab techniques and my recipes are reproducible when done properly. I don’t trust anything she does because she uses materials, equipment and techniques that were the latest rage during Bush 41.

So what’s your guess?

Gun nut? Gun owner? Neutral? Anti?

I may have to make a 5th category just for her based on the conversation in the lab today, But first, the players…

Me…gun nut(who uses ear protection for even a .22 rifle)
Ken…gun owner(who is near deaf because he didn’t believe in ear protection until it was too late.)
Jay…Buddhist vegan out to save the planet

Jay: How many *classified classified* do you have today? I did mention it was R&D, right?
Ken: What?
Me: He has eight.
Jay: I forgot that you can’t hear out of your right ear.
Ken: Actually, I have severe hearing loss in both ears.
Jay: How did that happen?
Ken: Too much shooting without hearing protection
Jay: Oh no, you must ALWAYS wear ear protection when shooting a gun.
Me: Agreed.
Ken: What?
Me: I said that I agreed with Jay that you should ALWAYS wear ear protection when shooting.
Ken: Yeah, well.

Jay is a neutral who doesn’t like guns yet can recite the 4 basic rules like a pro(Ya, I tested her). She doesn’t see the point in hunting because she doesn’t eat meat but has very strong feelings about gun safety and awareness when targeting game in the field.

Our community tends to focus on die-hard 2A supporters and total douche-bag gun grabbers. I just want to remind everyone that there are some shades of gray in the mix and that harvest could prove to be the most abundant. Be yourself, be cool and talk to people. You just might be surprised.

2 comments:

Thirdpower said...

I was talking to an associate the other day and I was asked randomly by a third party if I carry a gun. I said no, not in Illinois, and then my associate started explaining CCW laws in Illinois and various states to said third party.

She doesn't care for guns but her husband enjoys them and she's picked things up.

Anonymous said...

India takes its military seriously, what with their close neighbors being so unfriendly. I'd expect well-to-do immigrants to have a family history of patriotism, military service, and firearm awareness.