Click... Click... Boom!

As per your request, here's the story of how I almost got shot in the head.

Let me start this off with the question in the survey: Have you ever almost died? My answer was something along the lines of "yes, I was almost shot in the head once" or something like that...

Now, for those of you who did not grow up as little boys, I can tell you that I have almost died hundreds of times. Seriously. If you were to review the highlights of just Dave On A Bike throughout the years, you'd see me hit by 2 cars (the first left me sprawled on the car's hood when I was about 9, the second left me on the side of a road a bit dazed for a few minutes as the driver drove on as if it never happened.) I almost drowned while attending Summer Camp at the local YMCA when I was 6. I mean, really... from the ages of 8 to about 12 we had neighborhood Stick Wars where we used to fight eachother with tree branches.

Death is not something most young boys consider when they dart in and out of traffic on their way to the comic book store... it just isn't. But I digress...

This is to be the tale of my near demise.

Picture this: Cicily, 1946.. your aunt Lisa and I... er, wait, wrong story... Make that Cape Coral, 1991. I'm 11 years old and my friend Nicky and I are walking across town one Saturday afternoon to grab some lunch at McDonalds. This was not a new thing to us... we did it all the time. The two mile walk was always an adventure. We'd stop in as many stores as we could on the way. Tasting as many free samples in the grocery stores as we could. Once the people serving those tasty little morsels started refusing service, we'd grab a cart and race around the store until we were kicked out, then move to the next retailer. But one Saturday we got sidetracked.

Not too far from our neighborhood Nicky spotted something in the gutter. A smile broke across his face as he realized what it was. A revolver. Badass. Or at least the 11-year-old's version of Badass (probably just "Cool" or something of that ilk.) It was loaded, too. Way cool. Thoughts of food immediately were left behind as we took our new treasure back to our Tree Fort.

Once secure in our hide-out Nicky aimed the gun at a random piece of wood that was waiting to find a use in the fort and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He did it again.

Nothing happened.

A bit dissapointed, he relinquished the gun to me. It was suprisingly heavy for being so small. I remember that. I knew it wasn't plastic, but still... it had more wieght than I though it would have. I pulled the trigger while I aimed at imaginary glass bottles. My aim was true as evidenced by the glass-shattering sound Nicky made every time the hammer clicked dully on the dud rounds in the chamber.

Nicky's turn. Only this time he pointed the gun at me.

I wanted none of that, and told him so. My mama didn't raise a Complete fool. A fool yes, but not a complete one.

Nicky laughed it off and pretended to shoot me in the head a few times. Click... click... click... I started to walk away. I was not playing anymore. He just laughed it off saying that the gun was broken, nothing would happen. Click.. .click.. click... I told him I was still leaving, I didn't like him doing that. He aims the gun at his mailbox saying that I was just being a baby. Click.. boom.

The front of his mailbox blew open as the round tore right through it. We both screamed and ran. I went to my house, Nicky to his. After a few minutes my phone rang. It was Nicky telling me to get over to his house, so I did. We told his mom we found the gun, but not that we tried to use it. The police were called and they sent someone to pick up the weapon. I made Nicky give me a Nintendo game to square the fact that he almost shot me.
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So there you go, folks. I was one trigger pull away from dying before I ever made it to high school.