Day Twenty Seven - Ralph and the Air Rifle

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Alas, we said goodbye to the Nevada pirates and trudged Eastward.

Reilly the Red cried for several hours about how much she missed Roxy and Hurley.

We thought about stopping and doing the "Real Damn Tour", but decided against it.

We'd had enough of that Damn stuff.

Next stop: Williams, Arizona.



Arizona is awesome.

Did you know that in Arizona you can just walk around the streets, or Walmart, or BP, or Starbucks with your guns?

Like this guy?


So cool.

I can just see myself going to the bank, pulling a 9mm out of my purse whilst digging for a pen to endorse a check, and like, nobody freaking out.

Since, you know, everybody has guns, so it's no big deal if a teeny, tiny (and I stress the words TEENY, TINY) stay-at-home-mom whipped out a 9 mm at the bank. Probly happens at least one a day, I'm guessing.

So all this gun talk led to Captain Jake Sparrow gun talk.

You knew it was coming.

He wants a gun.

A real gun.

Not a nerf gun.

One that shoots real bullets.

A big gun.

Not a little gun.

He was very specific with the specifications.

We stalled his demands for a bit while we supped at the following:


Yes, my friends, you are seeing that sign correctly.

Pancho McGillicudy's.

We love Mexican food, we're Irish, and one of Reilly the Red's 'other' nicknames is Gertrude McGillicuddy.

So of course we had to try this place out.

Heckfire, we'd never been to a Tex-Irish restaurant before!

Lo and behold, it was a famous establishment, if not infamous.

The movie "Midnight Run" was filmed at this very same locale.

And the food was OUTSTANDING.

After dinner, we planned to take a walk about the 'town', and maybe, just maybe, purchase a 'real big' gun for the Captain. (against his mother's best judgment, but I don't have a say in the matters of guns and go-karts, only algebra and the birds and the bees).

But, of course, the Captain made it so very easy for us.

Instead of sitting properly at the table and eating his dinner like expected, knowing full well what his consequence would be if he acted inappropriately, his behavior entailed turning himself upside down in his seat so that his feet were on the table, his butt was in the air, and his head was near the floor where his feet were supposed to be.

NO GUN FOR YOU! said the Gun Nazi.

Not only did he not get a gun, but he had to be 'stuck' with Mom back at the hotel room, while Reilly the Red and Two Swords explored the town.

Two Swords said he could hear his wailing for blocks.

It went something like this:

"WHY............(sob, sniff, sob).....do........I.................always have to have ...........CONSEQUENCES?"

I think you've read that line somewhere before.

About an hour later, Two Swords and the Red showed up back at the hotel room.

Bearing a gun.

Sigh.

An air rifle gun.

Sigh.

With these air rifle bullet thingies.

I have no idea how else to describe it, other than, it was a nerf rifle without the nerf?

And of course I didn't take a picture of it, because, well, I suck.

And because, well, I got sick.

Horribly, horribly, almost having to think about going to a hospital that I'm sure doesn't exist in Williams, Arizona, sick.

I thought it was just me. (it probably was).

But then Two Swords got sick too.

Maybe Pancho's wasn't outstanding?

Maybe it was a coincidence?

Who knows.

We recovered.

Oh yeah, and I forgot to tell you what Reilly got when she went traipsing about 'town'.

A pocketknife.

Yep.

Something she can, you know, take to school.

Or carve initials into her hands with.

She told me it even had her name on it.

I said, "Really"? Because it is REALLY hard to find things with REILLY spelled on them the weird way that we chose to spell our daughter's name, as we were forewarned by many, but chose to ignore their advice, only to discover that our daughter would give up trying to locate a pocketknife with her name engraved on it to settle for the following:






I said, "Ralph?"

She shrugged, and said, "Yeah, it was pretty close, and besides sometimes Daddy calls me that."

Since when?

Since like you were in the store looking for pocketknives with your name on them????

Needless to say, I felt pretty safe in our room in Williams, Arizona not just because of signs like this:






but, because now, in addition to handcuffs, and Incredible Hulk masks and fighting gloves, and large quantities of prescription narcotics, and a room full of pirates, we now had knives and guns.

Yeah, baby.