Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll returns. She titles this column ADVENTURE! or YOU DO IT; I’LL WATCH! She writes:

A few weeks ago, Mr. Ammo Grrrll and I had the pleasure of meeting some new friends from Florida who are fans of the Power Line boys and devoted readers of Thoughts From the Ammo Line. Abby and Ken were in Arizona for their delightful tradition of spending New Year’s Eve in the Grand Canyon, a tradition dating back to 1996!

Abby, a self-described Florida cracker, was rather more taken with snow than your Minnesota-raised Ammo Grrrll who prefers vacations in which tan, attractive men bring you drinks with umbrellas. Adventurous Abby went out in the snow and made a Snow Angel and then bought a saucer-type sled. We are virtually the same age and if I were to rank activities I’d like to pursue at fifty-eight(een), “sledding” would come in at #537, right after “exercising with Harry Reid,” “sharing a luge with Michael Moore,” and “Cleaning up after any Million Man March.”

She then found a smallish hill – OK, not the Swiss Alps, but a hill nevertheless – and went down it in her saucer three times. They left the saucer with relatives in Prescott in order to play with it again next year. Now, I know people who have gone sky-diving without Depends, who have bungee-jumped in the actual Swiss Alps, who have taken swooping helicopter rides over volcanoes. Having just seen American Sniper, we won’t even mention combat veterans as that is a whole ‘nother (as we say in Minnesota) category of courage.

So, it was not so much the feat itself that wowed me, but her overall spirit of adventure. She’s just open to new things, new people, new experiences, and that’s a wonderful and enviable way to be. I am always impressed when people take on adventurous projects. I am the Queen of Wussie-Pants Homebodies, one small ratchet up from an agoraphobic.

Even as a kid, I preferred the Merry-go-Round to the Roller Coaster. My friend Angela rides her own motorcycle, can fly a plane, drive a tractor, and looks for the highest, most terrifying Roller Coaster she can find, assembled by the drunk carnie with the fewest teeth. I need somebody to hold my hand on The Small, Small World ride, preferably someone with a Nerf bat to knock that hideous song out of my head afterwards.

Now, many women and not a few men are uncomfortable around firearms and I love them, so I guess that would qualify as mildly-adventurous. Jerry Seinfeld claims that the Number One fear in America is speaking in public; hence, 30 years of standup comedy would also place me outside most people’s comfort zone, especially that of my high school classmate, Wayne, who called in sick every day when there was an Oral Book Report due, for as long as it took for the teacher to forget it. (In a croaking whisper:) “Sorry. This laryngitis seems to be hanging on a few weeks…and I also have a touch of leprosy…I may have to just hand in a written report…”

Were I to be coaxed out of retirement, say with vast amounts of cash, I think I would now combine the two, the hobby and the career. Standup with a firearm could markedly improve audience response. Remember all those Westerns where some psychotic guy would shoot at a poor victim’s feet, laugh uproariously and say, “Dance, yellowbelly, dance!”? Imagine the surprising fun of someone shooting close to an audience member’s head chortling, “Laugh, you humorless twit, laugh!” No? A girl can dream.

Mr. Ammo Grrrll, Juris Doctor, says “tough on Liability Insurance, tough on innocent audience members behind the reluctant laugher.” Hey, I bet you shoot at just one and pretty soon the whole place is laughing like both lawyers when a judge cracks a joke. “Ha, ha, Your Honor, now that’s funny!”

A story is told that a famous Chasidic rabbi informed his disciples that, at the age of 90, he was going to visit Switzerland. His flock was horrified. “But Master, you are too old for such a journey!” and he replied, “Well, this is the youngest age I have left. Soon I will meet my Maker and what will I tell Him when He asks, ‘Yossi, what did you think of My Alps?’.”

Abby appears to be fixin’ to leave nothing undone. May she live long and prosper. Me, I’ll have to tell the Almighty: “Well, I saw a lot of movies set in the Alps…Good job, there! Seriously! Have you heard the one where the horse goes into the bar and…”

So, dear readers and Commenters, what’s still left on your bucket list? What’s the most scary, adventurous thing you have ever done that’s already checked off? Teaching your teenager to drive doesn’t count. Neither does giving your wife an electric frying pan for an anniversary.

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