The NRA Hat

Was she the new Dirty Harry?

Dorothy never does anything halfway, and that includes her weapons of choice once she became interested in securing our living space. We already had a large dog, three growling cats, a free range feral hog named Clementine, a nineteen foot python trained to squeeze any strangers unless we give them the nod, a small African rhino trained to charge vehicles, and my Northside brother-in-law and me, the fanatical Northside Marine. Despite all those things, she insisted on dropping her domestic role to become a pistol-packing mama, once she got her NRA hat.

"We shouldn't give her that hat," I told Don, my brother-in-law. "She's going to go nuts again like she did with other hats and helmets."

"I know," he said. "But she already saw it."

Sure enough, the next morning she had it on. She had several holsters picked out for purchase, and then she wanted to shoot our guns and get her own guns. This was at five in the morning, and sometime during the night she had already set up targets in the yard. So we had shooting class every morning for a week before she went to work. She could already tag you between the running lights at 200 yards with a rifle, but she wanted to be an upclose handgun defender. We picked up more used brass than a Marine Corps shooting range. 

Then, she was ready to face the dangerous world, more confident than before. You can't tell, but in the picture above she is toting a 44 magnum, a derringer, two 22 caliber pistols, a 25 automatic, a switchblade taped to her leg, a stun gun, a billy club, brass knuckles, and a gas grenade. And that's just to cook dinner at home. I've caught her looking in the mirror and saying stuff like, "You looking at me," and "Feeling lucky, punk." A few times I thought she was talking to the mirror but it turned out to be my brother-in-law.

"She' scaring me," he said.

"Stay away from her while she's got that hat on," I said.

So once again, after several weeks of her Annie Oakley act, we stole the NRA hat while she slept and burned it in the firepit after pleading with all the gods. She woke up the next morning like Snow White and hasn't touched a gun since that day, but she is deadly as hell with a French knife so we stay clear while she cooks.

Dennis Latham Books Galore

The Foreman Hard Hat

I'm Da Boss And Don't Ya Forget It

  The moment she put on that hat, she started barking orders at me and her brother. She took over operations in the yard, making us lift boulders the size of a VW bug and trimming grass with scissors. We constructed a firepit and she wanted us to plant herbs and carnations and other non-manly stuff. Some people came to cut down some high tree branches, and she started ordering them around and one of them fell out of the tree and she fired him.

  "Let's fall down," I told my brother-in-law. "Maybe she'll fire us."

  We tried falling down and even acted like we broke bones, but it didn't work. She simply barked more orders at us because we live there and couldn't escape. We started calling her Miss Scarlet, like the girl in Gone With The Wind who kept ordering people around all day and night. She kept that hat right next to her for weeks when she wasn't wearing it. She even had us picking up clothes and making our own beds. That was the last straw.

  One night after she fell asleep, I stole the hard hat, and in a ritual ceremony where we pleaded with the gods, we burned it in the firepit. She was back to normal the next morning, meaning she would soon find something else to wear on her head. Hopefully, it won't be another hard hat.