THE CHAMBER!!!!! BARRELL!!

“I want a paintball gun for my birthday.”
Those words were the the beginning of the hell of my life these days, which is known around this house as The Great Paintball Obsession.
I should state, for “the record” that I was against the paintball gun. You see, I KNOW my son, I KNOW how he is and I KNEW that all of our “ok. We will buy you one, BUT, it is NOT to be used here at home. You can ONLY use it when we take you to a place intended for paintball shooting.” talks would go in one ear and out the other and, he’d bug the hell out of us until we let him “shoot it at the wooden fence” or “at targets in the backyard”.
The day of his birthday, Tony decided to let him shoot at the fence “JUST THIS ONE TIME” and only if he promised to wash all of the paint off.
Bad, bad move.
Everyday, since that day, which, in case you are wondering, has been 21 days, he has begged and pleaded with me, the MINUTE HE WALKS IN THE DOOR from school, if he can SHOOT THE STUPID PAINTBALL GUN.
And everyday, since that day, which, in case you are wondering, has been TWENTY ONE DAYS, I have given him the same answer.
“No. You can not.”
And everytime I have given him that answer, he has begged and pleaded and begged some more.
And everytime he has begged and pleaded, I have become extremely pissed off and raised my voice and said “I HAVE ALREADY GIVEN YOU AN ANSWER AND IF YOU CONTINUE TO ASK ME I WILL DESTROY THE GUN!”
He’ll stop asking at that point, but he’ll go to his room, take the gun out, stare at it, and THEN, he’ll come ask me if he can “just shoot AIR.”
“No. You may not shoot air.”
I finally got sick and tired of The Paintball Gun being paraded around the house and I told him I didn’t want to see it until he was going paintball shooting with his dad next weekend.
Fastforward to last night.
I’m in my room paying bills. Andrew walks in.
“Um. Mom. Um. Ok. Um. I took my paintball gun down because I wanted to check on it and I looked in the chamber and there was dirt in their so I STUCK MY FINGER IN IT to get the dirt out and um, my finger is stuck and I can’t get it out.”
I look over and see a long, shiny, round piece of metal hanging from my sons middle finger.
Being the wonderful mother I am, I started laughing, I mean, IT WAS THE MIDDLE FINGER, PEOPLE! But he started crying (and he never cries, he’s 12!) and screaming “It’s not funny! My finger is stuck! HELP ME!” I’ll admit, it took everything in me to a)not continue to laugh b)not run and get my camera c)not yell at him “THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR NOT OBEYING ME!”
Ok. I did say that, but then? I realised that his finger wasn’t going to come out of that thing and I panicked. Seriously panicked.
I have a history of doing that when my kids get hurt. It makes Tony want to kick my ass because I’m “the adult” and it’s my job to calm the kid down, not “freak him out even more”.
I walked him over to the kitchen and got out the cooking oil. This is when “Smart Man Who Knows Everything” chimes in.
“Wait. Not the oil. That could ruin the chamber barrell.”
“THE BARRELL? WHO GIVES A CRAP ABOUT THE BARRELL?! I’M TRYING TO SAVE MY SONS MIDDLE FINGER HERE! THE BARRELL!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”
I greased the finger up, gently twisted and it came off. Thank GOD, I didn’t want to have to call The Law again and ask them to remove a metal object from my child’s body.
The second it slid off, Andrew started laughing uncontrollably because HIS FINGER WASN’T GOING TO HAVE TO BE CHOPPED OFF! And I dropped to the floor where I proceeded to pee a little.
It was awesome to watch Andrew WILLINGLY hand his gun over to his dad, so that we could put it out of his reach until he needs it to actually go paintball shooting. Had I known it would have taken him getting his finger stuck and almost having to have it CHOPPED OFF, I would have pointed out the dirt in the chamber 20 days ago.