This will be a tl;dr for pretty much everyone, but I don't care...I think I may use some of this for my blog someday and can just copy, paste, modify, post when I do.
Ever been shot? No. But bizarrely enough (for a small town, jock Iowan) I have had a gun pulled on me in 5 situations (4 instances, but 1 situation that was repetitive).
1.) Walked into the wrong apartment one time....dude pulled a gun and said he was going to shoot me in the head if I didn't leave. I was just like, "sorry dude!" and sprinted out and didn't even attempt to look any further for the apartment that my friends were hanging out at.
2.) Ever have those drunken stupors where you are thinking about all the sentimental shit and start bawling like a baby? I don't....anymore anyways. Used to every once in a while. When I was like 21, I got stupid wasted on the 4th of July and started thinking about my grandfather who was like a 2nd father to me and lived a mile down the road in the country from me when I grew up, who was having heart troubles at the time. It was like 4 in the morning and in my drunken, sobbing stupor, I convinced my girlfriend (although she really, really didn't want to) to take me to my grandpa's house. My grandpa was the epitome of a worry-wart, so I should've known better, regardless of how drunk and stupid I was. I showed up at his place, crying like a little bitch and he answered the door in a flannel shirt and whitey tighties with a shotgun telling me that if I were attempting to break in and steal something he was going to shoot me in the face. I went from crying to being all wide-eyed and shaken. When he realized it was me, he proceeded to give me a 2-hour long lecture about how bad I scared him and how I was on a road to self-destruction by drinking... He passed away 2 years ago (6 years after this took place) from complications associated with his multiple heart surgeries. I'm sure my appearance at his house in the country at 4 am didn't exactly...."help" his heart situation by any means.
3.) This is the repetitive one. There was this dude we used to buy beer who lived in the "city" (meaning it had a Wal-Mart) in my area. We knew him as "Crazy Carl" and he wasn't exactly the most mentally stable guy in the world. It was a pain in the ass asking him to buy beer from us because he answered the door with a rifle pointed at us through the window EVERY TIME we stopped there. I always tried to avoid going to his place by all means possible, but that was usually our last case scenario, which we unfortunately had to resort to from time to time. He was a really nice guy after he took the damn rifle away from your face. I hated going there though, not only because he answered the door with a rifle, but because his place was gross. He had this 18 year old dog named Puddly who was his best friend. The damn thing deteriorated from old age so badly that it lost almost all of it's hair and grew some sort of cancerous decubitus ulcer that resembled a half-pound hamburger patty. I used to watch that dog mope around the house and rub that damn hamburger patty all over the furniture and then watch my dumbass friends sit or brush up against where the patty had been and I always wanted to vomit in my mouth. Then I would start thinking about all the shit in the house that was somehow in direct or indirect contact with that thing...like if I was grabbed a door handle, I thought about how many times Crazy Carl had petted the dog on the hamburger patty immediately before touching the door handle. Used to gross me out. He used to cuddle with that damn thing. Crazy Carl always made it clear that the dog was his best friend and no matter how bad it's health became, he wasn't ever going to put it down. I was never more happy about the death of a dog than I was when that dog died. In retrospect, I think Crazy Carl answering the door with a rifle was moreso his way of trying to impress us by showing us how intimidating he was, yet nice enough to buy us beer than it was an act of being psychotic. I think he was lonely and the kids who have bought beer from him for years along with his dog have literally been his best "friends" in life.
4.) This one wasn't really a big deal, but it seemed like it at the time, for I was a relatively sheltered 15 year old Freshman in high school. I went to Cedar Rapids, IA to watch my brother wrestle at youth state. We stayed at a hotel on the outskirts of CR. At the hotel, these two girls, 1 of them beautiful, 1 of them a butterface, approached us and wanted to hang out with us. I was ecstatic, for I hadn't even been acknowledged by a female since the beginning of my freshman year which kicked off in awesome fashion by my girlfriend leaving me for the star of the football team. I actually ended up kind of hooking up with the beautiful one while my upperclassmen friend hooked up with the butterface. Anyways, to make a long story short, we ended up walking around the city of Cedar Rapids. These guys in a beat down white car crept by us a few times and on the 3rd or so time, they stopped and the driver rolled down his window and said, "ya'll wanna fight?" I was confused, shaking my head and saying, "umm...no, not really," while my friend (who had qualified and competed in the high school state wrestling tournament a couple weeks prior to this) lifted his middle finger up and yelled back at them, "f*** off, bitches!" Dude in the driver seat put his hand out the window at extended 3 fingers and was like, "oh yeah! Vicelordz is how we rollin'!" My friend yelled back, "**** the Vicelordz and **** you!!" The guy then whipped out a hand gun and said something along the lines of "you still talkin' shit now, motha****a?!" And I started running away with the girls while my friend just stood there and was like, "that's not loaded and your a ****ing dipshit." The dude in the car said something about how if he weren't on parole, he would shoot us all up and then squealed his tires and blazed off and proceeded to creep by us staring daggers 3 or 4 more times before we reached the hotel. I couldn't believe how brave my friend was in that situation, for he had always been so nice and such a golden boy. Was brought up in a strict Christian household as the oldest of 6 siblings. He was valedictorian, a student council member, homecoming king the following year, well liked by everyone and successful in every sport he participated in.....and he participated in freaking soccer of all wuss things. But he was a badass when it came down to it...was like a 3 time state qualifier in wrestling for us and when that ultimate fighting stuff started up in Iowa and you could basically just go to the show up at the bar holding the event, sign up and be set up with a fight (before the place started getting sued), he used to sign up every time without any practice or conditioning, drink heavily and fight....he probably did that 15 times and never even came close to losing a bout. Haven't seen him in years...he ended up joining the Navy and was stationed in Japan. He met his wife there and he has since, established residency there. Every morning when I wake up, he has a new Atheist quote from some scholar posted as his status....his parents have probably disowned him by now.
5) This one was by far the most creeped out I ever was out of all of the gun-pointing situations and it is by far the most creeped out I become when I talk/write about it. It was so...freaking....weird. 3 Summers ago, my fiancée and I went to some wildlife refuge in the middle of nowhere (within miles of gravel roads from each direction) which had a sign that said it had a lake that can be fished, which was perfect because that's what we were looking to do. We pull into the parking lot and there is a beat down pickup truck there. We immediately found the lake, but didn't see anyone there. We found a spot and began fishing and we heard a loud gunshot noise coming from the wooded area next to the lake. A couple minutes later, some guy decked out in camo and carrying a shotgun case, who appeared to be in his late teens or early 20's walked out of the wooded area and along the edge of the dam that we were fishing off and stopped about 20 feet away from us and just started staring at us with an odd, glazed expression on his face. I waved at him nonchalantly and he didn't even acknowledge me. Just kept standing there, staring at me with that eery, emotionless expression on his face with his shotgun case in hand. After a couple minutes of him staring at us and my fiancée and I standing there silently thinking to ourselves, "WTF?!?!" he began walking again and strolled right past us and crawled through a gate which was about 15 feet away from us. After he crawled through the gate, he took his gun out of the case and started doinking around with it....cocking it and what not. He did this for a minute or two (while my fiancée and I are shaking in our boots) before proceeding to point the gun directly at us and gazing through the scope. My fiancée, panic-stricken, broke down and silently squealed under her breath, "omg Josh, wtf is he doing?!" In my own panic, my initial reaction was to walk up to the guy and attempt to build a rapport with him. To this day, I have no idea where this fear came from, for I was scared shitless. I figured that doing this was my impulsive method of persuading him not to murder us, if that was in fact, what he had in mind...which I don't know why else he would be behaving the way he was. I approached him with enthusiasm and was like, "hey man how's it going?!? You been catchin' any fish over here?!? This is our first time here!! You ever have any luck here?!" As mentioned, he looked to be in his late teens, early 20's, 6'0 tall, skinny build, brown hair, brown eyes, moderately sunken cheeks and abrasions that appeared consistent with the scabs that chronic meth users acquire. Worst of all was his expression. He seemed to be staring through me with a glazed, emotionless, creepy expression on his face. His gun had been pointed at me the entire time while I walked towards him, but when I began speaking to him, he slowly put his gun down and in back in the case and replied softly, "ummm... ummm.. I don't really know. Maybe there is some bass." I responded, "ahh cool dude!!! That's what we're going for!!" I continued to B-S with him about how the fish were biting. He appeared to snap out of whatever mental funk he was in and told me he had to leave and started walking towards his truck which was in the parking lot. I walked back towards my fiancée, who was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown and advised her to try to remain cool and continue as if nothing occurred until this creep left the parking lot. Within a few minutes, I caught a bullfrog of all things. Almost immediately after catching the bullfrog, I heard my fiancee whispering frantically, "omg Josh, he's coming back! Omg, omg, omg, what are we going to do?! Omg!!" I turned my head to the right and towards the parking lot and see him walking towards the gate with his gun in his case. He crawled through the gate and began slowly walking along the dam towards us. I impulsively grabbed my pole and attempted to build a rapport again. I blurted with enthusiasm, "hey dude, I caught a bullfrog!! It was funny!" He didn't respond. He maintained his cold, glossy stare and continued walking slowly towards us. When he was within a foot or so of us, he said softly, "I see you guys are using spinners. If I were you, I would be using worms." I replied, "ahh, shucks man! We don't have any worms!!! Wish we did!!!" The guy responded, "you guys aren't going to catch anything in this lake without worms. Only worms work. If I were you, I'd leave and go buy some worms and go to a different spot." As he began walking towards the wooded area, I said, "ya know, that's a great idea!! I think we may have all kinds of luck using worms in a farm pond or something!! The only thing that seems to be biting in this spot seems to be the bullfrogs!!" I nudged the bullfrog towards him with a sheepish smile on my face as he continued to walk towards the wooded area without responding to or acknowledging me. My fiancée and I silently packed our gear and began walking towards the gate. The sooner we could get the **** out of there, the better. We crawled through the gate and I looked back to see what the home-boy was up to. He made it to the wooded area and stopped and was in the process of taking his gun out of his case again. I thought to myself, "oh good God, what in the hell is this guy going to do?" My fiancée began rapidly, but softly whimpering as we continued to walk from the gate towards our jeep. After this guy took the gun out of it's case, he pointed the shotgun at us AGAIN. I nodded at him and waved as if I didn't notice that he was pointing a shotgun at us as if I were non-verbally communicating the message of "good bye" to him. He didn't respond. Just stood there at the edge of the wooded area pointing the gun at us. My fiancée and I, somehow kept enough of our cool to refrain from running and continue walking. He didn't put the gun down until we were within 50 feet or so of our vehicle. In my life, I have found myself stuck in some uncomfortable situations provoked by the odd or erratic behavior(s) of other people, but nothing has ever given me the creeps like that guy at the lake. Makes me wonder what the shot blast that we heard when we first arrived was directed towards. I've thought, maybe he was poaching and didn't want to turn us in? I don't know.
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