The Whole Shootin’ Match

I’ve been married at least once before. It was fairly young – 24, I think. I’m not sure why we got married, since neither of us wanted to have kids. She kinda insisted, I sheepishly remember.

When I told my best friend (who had been cheating on me with her behind my back, that f*ck), he said, “So, you’re finally going to pull the trigger.” I said, “What do you mean, ‘pull the trigger’?” He explained that I was going to make a life-altering decision that couldn’t be undone, that once it was done, it was a part of my history, my pattern of existence. I gamely said, “Yeah, right, that’s what I’m going to do.”

So, when that marriage evaporated eight or nine years later, that was another trigger pull. Then, a second marriage and a child and another divorce. Suddenly, I’ve fired more shots than a dude trying to impress his dame at a shooting gallery at a county fair, yet the star isn’t completely shot out. And I’m starting to feel like Sonny at that toll plaza.

I look at the future, at the possible decisions to be made and not made, the scenarios that build in my head, the powerlessness I feel at present and I think, no, I’m not pulling that trigger again, I’m just not going to do it. But then, that’s the same damn thing – letting someone else pull the trigger for you, only, the barrel may be pointing at your head. More likely, though, it’ll be a gut shot with a long, slow, languorous death.

I was fairly chipper when the dog was barking her brains out at 5:30 this AM, now, I have been wrested back into reality by my own brand of bullsh*t and rather poor aim. I think I should spend time at the target range so that when I pull that trigger again, I kill rather than maim when I’m a-shootin’. That’s much more humane for all parties concerned.