Ramble 6. Out of town guy at a Bay Area Christmas Party

Sergei and Marge went to a Christmas party in Alameda – in this case we won’t say anything more about our city than that the party was on the East Side.

One one of the guests was from “out of town”.

Boy! Did he have a perspective! One topic of conversation was that Connecticut, one of early America’s industrial centers, was a:

“hotbed of weapons manufacturing—so much so that it was referred to in the 19th century as the “Arsenal of America.” In 1851, Samuel Colt, inventor of the revolver, built a factory on a parcel of land on the banks of the Connecticut River near Hartford. The legendary saying attached to Colt was “Abe Lincoln may have freed all men, but Sam Colt made them equal.” (Read the article)

From there the conversation went to a newspaper that ran a holiday ad for handguns and assault rifles placed next to an article about the 20 children and 8 adults shot to death in Sandy Hook, CT.

Here’s a screenshot of the ad:

Then this “out of town” guest (“OOTG”) shared his perspective (“more like out-to-lunch, Marge”, Sergei says):

OOTG: Sure we need assault rifles and when better than Christmas to give ‘n get ‘em! For one thing, who knows when some fat guy in some outfit too-weird-to-be-taken-seriously will come into your house – through the chimney, for example, and you’ll have to protect your family.”

Think about it. This intruder dumps a bunch of packages under your indoor plant. Where I come from we call those sorts of guys ‘terrorists’!

This is exactly the kind of situation that calls for a diversified arsenal. Deer rifle for the horned critters of the roof and an assault weapon to ensure you drill through the fat guys layers of blubber and hit a vital organ."

The OOTG looked around the  room to be sure he still had an audience.
He did. All of us – 15 or 20 people – just stared at him with our mouths hanging open. He took our silence as permission to continue.

OOTG: “These days ya just never can tell what’s on your doorstep – or on your roof. Man, I should blast that foreigner and his gang simply for landing on my roof and messing up my shingles. Every spring! Every spring I gotta go up there and make sure the roof is maintained after the holidays. Ain’t no holiday for folks like me who try to maintain our property values, let me tell ya!”

Well, as usually happens at social events like this, no one took the opportunity to confront OOTG’s views. We all just simply tuned him out and poured ourselves another glass of eggnog. After a while, OOTG left. As the door closed behind him the few of us remaining rolled our eyes to express our opinions; others simply ignored the whole episode and talked brightly about how the drought seems to be breaking and “won’t it be nice when spring comes around again?” 

During the silent walk home Sergei muttered something about Marge reminding him to check the roof shingles in the spring.