"Now We Know What You Don't Like"

What a weekend. I thought the week was a little blah, but this weekend totally made up for this weeks mundaneness.
This work week started off pretty normal. Finished a program for Hastings which is one of our retail clients that should have taken me a day. Not a complex design and only about 20 schools to do in the design. Because I knew the retail orders were slow this week I drug that program into a three day affair and by the third I was so bored with it I started making stupid mistakes.
Had to sit there a second.
Take things into perspective and give myself a little pep talk, and get my stuff straight and get the job done.
Finished.
Awesome.
Then I checked my work email and voila.
Two new messages.
Sweet, who loves me today!?!? I wonder....
Well, it's from the Production manager here at MJ Soffe and she needed Jeanette and I to design some Spring Break designs for some of our east coast and gulf coast outlet stores.
Oh, and I need them in the next 24 hours.
Riigghhtt...
Now, without going into some insane detail, it's REALLY HARD to come up with a clothing line in 24 hours.
I don't care if I work for Versace.
It's HARD.
What sucked even more is she got the request for these designs over a month ago and waited until last minute to give it to us to make.
Awesome.
Ugh.
Got it done, but not without a mini temper tantrum.
I actually really liked what I came up with so I'm excited to see what's taken into production. Jeanette had some awesome stuff too, so we'll see what comes out. It's always so cool to see something of yours "come to life."
:)

So, Friday John tells me that his friend has a revolver (the type of gun we are talking about getting) that he would be willing to let us practice on/use to see if that's the type of gun we want to by for me while John is gone.
Saturday after spin and a quick trip to Sam's, we met up with him at the barracks and went to an outdoor range on post to try this whole thing out.

Factoid #1: I have never shot a gun in my life. (Ok, well according to my dad I shot rifles when I was a kid at our ranch, but I don't think that counts since I don't remember it and I had to have been way to naive to really understand the complexity of what I was dealing with-- aka: a metal stick of death!!)
Factoid #2: I know no gun lingo or jargon. PERIOD.
Factoid #3: I have never been to a shooting range in my life.

We drive up to this wooded area on post and walk towards this long open field of "lanes" where people are shooting. To the right of these lanes is this little metal hut.
We go into this hut and it turns out all the lanes are full of people that bought all day passes.
Bummer, right?
Not really.
While John and Tom were talking to the lady in the hut, I was ducking for cover, jumping at every pop I heard. I probably looked like I had a nervous twitch or something.
I'm a very jumpy person. I can KNOW John is around the corner from me and I'll still jump when I see him. I don't know why I am that way, but I am....John and I have gotten a lot of laughs out of it, but unfortunately for the gun loving public of Fayetteville, this was not going to be one of those days.
People in those lanes were shooting constantly with the most obnoxious and LOUD pops I have ever heard in my life. I felt like fire crackers were going off at my feet.
I felt like I was in a horrible war movie.
So, the lanes are full and the boys decide to take me to a different range off post that is an indoor range.
We go inside and they had us read this waiver and sign it before we could get our eye pro and ear protector thingys.
I'm reading this waiver and ever single "rule" and "guidline" had some type of jargon in it that prevented me from understanding a single thing I was reading?
Why is there brass in range I have to clean up??
What is clearing a weapon??
Etc.
Well, I asked John, "Is this something I need to understand or should I just sign it?"
He tells me to just sign, so I signed my life and nerves away and handed over my ID in return for some eye pro and these huge ear muff things that look like what people wear when they are in helicopters.
They open the door to the indoor range for me and the second I stepped into this cold cement cavern, I FROZE.

The pops were so loud and making me jump so much it probably looked like I was having a seizure.

There were gangster THUGS in there with shot guns and machine guns just going buck wild shooting away.
There was a chick in stripper heels loading up this gun as long as my arm. There were kids in there and old CREEPY people in there just firing away. There were 20 lanes in all, and all were full, so I literally just froze.
All the sudden my head just started spinning and my chest became so tight I could barely breath and I felt like I was going to puke.
In a out of body like experience the guys walked me up to our "booth" and tried to explain to me what to do with the safety and how to load the gun and blah blah blah....
All I heard were echos of mumbles in my head and I just burst into tears.
I seriously just stood there bawling.
I will have you know I had no shame either.
I slowly backed away from the booth and propped myself up against the back wall with my arms crossed clutching myself for dear life.
It was the most petrifying thing I have EVER done.
And I didn't even shoot the weapon.
I was clutching my arms so tight my knuckles were white and I had nail marks in my skin from my nails.
John asked me if I wanted to leave and I couldn't even speak. Every time I tried opening my mouth to say something someone would start shooting and send me into a jumping bean fit.
He told me to just stay there (like I was going to go anywhere!!) while they fired some and if I got comfortable and wanted to try it to let them know.
I sat there and literally rocked myself like a psycho patient.
I'm not joking when I say it was like an out of body experience. I hardly remember anything going on except that the noises were SO LOUD that I felt like was in hell.
I just kept mentally talking to myself that it's ok, and I've never done it before, so it's ok if I freak out, etc.

Finally the guys are done and we walk out of the range. Well, they walked. I split out of there so fast bawling through the entire store to the car still with my arms crossed and knuckles white.
I stood at Tom's truck waiting for him to unlock it.
"I'm sorry that freaked you out," he says. "At least we now know what you don't like!"
Touche.
I actually laughed for a millisecond and then went back into my panic zone.

Needless to say we got home and I ran into our room and jumped in the shower so I could clear my head.
I almost felt dirty.
Like I NEEDED to clean myself off after something like that. It was REALLY weird and I have never experienced anything like that before.

Finally when I calmed down John and I talked about it and have come up with a newer/better approach in this adventure.
TYL.
The only crappy thing is time is not on my side to get comfortable with it.

This is my husband's last week of work before pre-deployment leave.
He'll have the next three weeks off of which we'll get to go back to CO and see family and friends.
It's going to be great.
But that's time that I am going to need to get all of our stuff straight before he leaves.

Shoot, I need to add "How to use the lawn mower" to my list of things John has to teach me before April.
Maybe I can bribe some neighborhood kid to at least scoop the poop, right??