July: My New BFF

Yesterday morning I picked up my new gun!  It was a pain in the ass.  The shop owner gave me the run-around for two days straight, and then tried to tell me that I had to wait until Saturday.  This ticked me off because he was the one who originally scheduled me to pick it up on Tuesday (I showed up and shop was closed down with no courtesy call whatsoever).  Even though I had already paid for my purchase and waited the cool-down period, he was basically holding my gun hostage and felt no need to fork it over.  I finally got testy with him over the phone on Wednesday night and suggested that he squeeze me into his busy schedule if he wanted to maintain his business's good name.  He agreed, and we met at 8:00 a.m yesterday.  Twenty minutes later, I had all of the papers signed and was out the door with this:

Don't be fooled by how small and cute it looks.  This little gun's a fireball.  I couldn't wait until Saturday to try it out, so Clint and I drove down the hill and paid to use one of the ranges for an hour.  When I shot my first round, I was expecting it to feel like a 22.  Nuh uh.  If you're not careful, this little thing will try to rip your hand off.  Okay, that's a serious exaggeration, but the .38 Special definitely feels more like a 45 than a 22 or a 9 mm.  It's got a lot of umph in that small package.  By the time our hour was up, the web of my hand was throbbing and I was head-over-heels in love with my new gun.  I nicknamed it "July", because it reminds me of a quirky, explosive little fire cracker.   . 

After shooting, we swung by the sheriff's station, and I picked up an application for a CCW permit.  The application itself is very thick, and will take days (if not weeks) for me to fill out.  Plus you have to have three people (non-relatives) write you a character reference letter.  This would normally be no problem for me at all, if it weren't for the explanation I have to give said-people.  "Hey, can you write a letter saying that I'm an awesome person so I can stash a gun in my purse?" 

After all of the paperwork is turned in, you have to go through a background check and a face-to-face interview.  The earliest they can schedule my interview is November, so this gives me plenty of time to try to fulfill all of the requirements.  Again, this permit is difficult to qualify, so this may all be a moot point.  But I'm still planning to try. 

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I wrote a whole bunch more, but decided to cut that section out and (possibly) save it for another entry.