Okay, so I’ve often said that Ralphie from A Christmas Story reminds me of Alaric, my oldest boy. The way he looks, the way he treats his brother, everything. Well, Alaric has been asking for an air-soft rifle for Christmas and he actually got one. No compass in the stock, but the stock does detach. And no “thing that tells time” either. And air-soft guns shoot plastic pellets, not metal ones, but they can still sting.

Anyway, Alaric got the gun for Christmas yesterday and wasted no time in setting up some targets at the end of our wraparound porch and working on sighting in the rifle. The gun did come with safety goggles, but Alaric chose not to use them because they got in the way. After a while, one of his shots ricocheted off of something and bounced off something else and then hit him in the face. It wasn’t hard and he wasn’t hurt at all, but it was in the EXACT SAME PLACE as Ralphie! He came in and said what happened and I said, “You shot your EYE out!” Pretty funny.

Oh, and as a bonus fact, if you aim a red laser pointer at a regular incandescent lightbulb, it sort of lights it up all red. That was for free.

[tags]Christmas story, Ralphie[/tags]