Last weekend, one of my best friends invited me to head down to his house in Austin, Texas. From there, we drove even further to his ranch to do some hunting during Fall Break. Being from Boston, Massachusetts I had never hunted before, and had never even shot a gun. After telling my family all about my plans for the weekend, they then passed the stories on to my other relatives, and I received a phone call from my grandfather on Friday morning, just hours before we were going to leave.
After talking briefly about my plans for the upcoming weekend and how excited I was for the trip, my grandfather decided to tell me a story about one of his friends from college. The friend's name was Billy, and he and my grandfather went to college together at Indiana University. During his junior year at Indiana, Billy decided to participate in a foreign exchange program with a family in Switzerland. The host family lived near the Alps, so they decided to take Billy rabbit hunting during his first weekend at their house. Billy was very similar to me and had never been hunting before, but was excited to see the sites and perhaps bring back a rabbit.
After setting off on the family adventure, Billy heard some rustling in the nearby bushes as they were hiking through the trails. Immediately, he grabbed his pellet gun and shot at the rustling bush. Turns out... Billy had just shot the family dog. All it took was one weekend for the Swiss family to hate this college student for the rest of his time staying at their house. Luckily, the dog wasn't killed with the pellet gun. However, Billy did have to live with the daily sight of seeing a dog slightly limp around for the next several months, just to serve as a reminder to himself and the host family for what he had done. It turns out that the family never really forgave Billy, and essentially hated him for the rest of his time in Switzerland. Moral of the story, never shoot at something if you don't know exactly what it is.
Upon hearing this story, I started cracking up. I think the main reason I laughed at this was because the dog was never seriously injured, and my grandpa was the storyteller. My grandfather and I have always been close, but he will rarely stray from more serious and generic conversations with me. To hear him tell a story like this was a big change, and definitely caught me off guard. Also, the story itself provides a cognitive shift from a simple story of hunting, to a comical accident involving a misunderstood college boy. I believe that the story was also very relatable to my life, which made me laugh as well. It's safe to say I was very careful when shooting a gun the next few days, and relayed the story to my friend's family who all got a kick out of it as well. Well done Grandpa!
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