Since I mentioned an old beau yesterday, I decided to mention someone else I once allowed an audience with me several years ago. This one I’ll call “P”, which you can laugh about because “penis” begins with the same letter, and some guys probably refer to theirs as “Mr. P” without humor. (Don’t get me started on guys who give appellations to their appendages. I could tell you stories, but I won’t.)
So anyway. P. He was an Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia. (See what happens when you work in the legal profession? You get to hobnob with all the best people.) He is now a partner in a major law firm. So if you care to look him up, it won’t be difficult to find him. Just type “P, law partner, Philadelphia, used to date Jodi” into any search engine.
For some reason, P had a lot of guns. (He also had a lot of guts. See what fun you can have just by substituting a single consonant? Oh, and by “guts” I don’t mean the kind that accumulate on one’s body. Please. Do you really think I’d go out with someone with a gut? Well, OK, I did once. But never again.) And for some reason, P thought I would like to shoot one. I think he thought that because I said this: “P, you know what? Sometime I’d like to shoot a gun.”
So one Saturday morning, he picked me up and we went to a shooting gallery in a really safe part of Philadelphia. As we drove around, I began to suspect that when he said “shooting gallery”, he meant we’d be shooting up heroin, not shooting guns. I actually got a little happy, because I was feeling a little low and needed the sort of pick-me-up that even caffeine can’t accommodate. But when we pulled up in front of Sir Shootsalot (no, not its real name), I may as well have pumped heroin into my neck.
The only other people there were the kind of people you’d expect to be there. They all looked like they had just gotten out of jail for doing something with the guns they were now handling with such aplomb. P and I looked out of place in our schoolgirl uniforms.
It’s fun being the only dame in a place like that. And yes, when you walk into a place like that you become a dame. Any perceptions of yourself as a delicate flower or a pampered princess or just a plain ol’ “girl” are immediately, well, shot down. You don’t want to be a girl or a woman. You’re a dame or a broad, and that’s it.
The headgear alone ensures that. It’s hard to feel less than tough/tuff when you’re wearing the things over your ears and the goggles. It’s not impossible to look sexy, either, as P assured me. And he meant it.
So I used a variety of guns. I don’t remember any of their names, but the one that P said I looked best with was called a “Glock”, I think. It was a pistol, I think. (I think a lot.) Or I was a pistol. Or something. Whatever it or I was, it was a blast to fire. (And yes, it was literally a blast, not just figuratively.) He said it was the sort of gun James Bond used, which was enough for me to feel like my schoolgirl uniform was instantly replaced by a latex catsuit. (So you see … here you have two sexy images of me: schoolgirl … catsuit. I like to appeal to a wide audience.)
I didn’t think I would like it as much as I did. And you know that “they” say that when you like doing something, you usually excel at it. (There’s got to be a quote out there that addresses this phenomenon.) So yes. I excelled. I surprised myself. Whereas I suck at darts and only rarely get a bullseye (and here you get an image of me in a bar, in latex or a plaid skirt, throwing darts with one hand while balancing a drink in the other), I managed to neatly and quickly take out the heart of my paper assailants. I know that comes as a surprise, given that my own heart is so full of love for flesh-people.
P was astounded. For months he’d read and heard my special brand of vitriol (believe me, the “tender bits of bitchiness” I dole out here are nothing compared to those I indulge in real life), but never had he seen it translated so brilliantly. Allow me to be so bold as to say the rest of the afternoon was splendid in ways I shan’t divulge.
Although P and I said we would definitely return to the shooting gallery sometime, I haven’t handled any sort of gun since that Saturday morning several years ago. Which is probably a good thing. Because once I like something, I tend to get a little obsessed (just a little). So let’s just say it’s better that in my closet hang 250 latex catsuits. But no guns.
Because after all, this is AMERICA, and I believe in giving everyone a fair shot.