Birthdays, Backups & Calendar Doodles
Sunrise. The house was quiet. Me an’ the Memsaab were sippin’ first cupsa coffee, the only sounds bein’ her pencil tapping on the calendar and Sancho Panza snoring by the kitchen door. Then …
“Aw, nuts! I missed Louise’s birthday! It was last month!” She snortled and tossed her hair in frustration. She’s got a cute snortle, by the way.
I asked, “Thelma is still your number-one girl, isn’t she? Do ya think Louise needs the Full Monty?” Helena wrinkled her nose.
“She seems fine. With the move and everything I’ve hardly worked her out at all this past year. Not a sneeze or a cough, but still, you know how I am … What do you think?” Oh, yeah; I know how she is. Something had to be done for Louise.
“How ’bout,” I suggested, “we strip her down, scrub her clean, give her a careful checkup an’ take her out to dance? We’ll eyeball her good, and if she misses a step, we’ll get her a date with Kenny.” Helena had that furrowed brow, not-quite-tickled but grudgingly pacified look goin’.
“Okay,” she sighed, “That should be all right. I just don’t want to let things slide just because she’s, you know …”
“Your number-two girl,” I said. “I know, honey.”
The OCKC
Thelma is Helena’s primary carry pistol. Louise is Thelma’s “understudy;” the exact same make, model and series. She shoots both, but Thelma is shot about 20 rounds to one over Louise. If “Thelma & Louise” doesn’t ring a bell, Google-search the 1991 movie. Kenny is our go-to gunsmith, and “the Full Monty” is a complete firearms micro-inspection, disassembly down to the bones, a solvent-tank bath and cleaning and refreshment of lubes and protectants. The OCKC is Helena — the Obsessive-Compulsive Keeper of the Calendar. And she’s really obsessive about “her girls.” She tracks my primaries too.
You don’t have to be as crazy — I mean “focused” — about it as she is, but I highly recommend putting “birthdays” on your calendar, not for all your guns perhaps, but definitely for primary and backup guns. There are two kinds of handguns you should pay special attention to. First, those you shoot a lot, and/or carry on your person routinely. Second, those you rarely carry or shoot — like maybe your bedside boomer or a household hideout.
Shot-a-lot guns build up gremlin poop in places you never see during routine maintenance. One of our crew recently developed unexplained extractor problems. Hidden behind the extractor he found a compressed slug of carbon that looked like a fat fossilized mouse turd. Carry guns are constantly subjected to condensation, corrosive sweat salts and infiltration by lint, dust, threads, grit — you name it, especially if carried in IWB holsters or in direct skin contact. Evil lurks in trigger assemblies, under grip panels, behind bushings, in firing pin holes — everywhere.
Guns that get dumped in pockets, purses, go-bags and car consoles are magic magnets for malfunction-inducers. An acquaintance made an impromptu stop at a range to put a few rounds through his pocket piece. He got one round off, then the trigger seized. His ’smith extracted what looked like busted white gravel. Apparently, it was a fractured age-hardened breath mint. It could have become the equivalent of a cyanide capsule.
Guns that snooze more than they’re shot need checkin’ too, because lubes can go gummy or turn to varnish and greases can migrate or congeal to concrete. And the worst of it always seems to happen where you can’t easily see it.
Commence Doodling!
Two dynamics are at work here: First, most of the time you won’t know these problems are building until your weapon fails. Second, mercifully less often, those failures may occur at the worst possible time. Bust out your calendar and commence doodling! Here are a few other doodle-worthy suggestions.
Talk to your ’smith about the most commonly-needed replacement parts for your primary Roscoes — springs, firing pins or strikers, extractors, ejectors or screws. Order spares yourself. If they’re needed in a pinch, you’ll have ’em ready and he won’t have to order them — or deal with “out of stock” delays. Meantime, you’ve got your understudy, right? You don’t have one? Doodle that, dude. Ditto for your backups, buddy. As a wise gunfighter once said, “the best spare part is a spare piece.”
Assign a date to survey and inspect your magazines or speedloaders. Need more? Need better? A full set to devote to training only? Are your mag springs as springy as spanky-new? How ’bout inert rounds for your dry-fire drills? Make notes, Nathan. If you carry daily, but your spectacles and daily-wear sunglasses don’t provide ballistic protection, ain’t it time to remedy that? Okay; maybe not right now, but scratch it on the calendar and plan it, Pete. How old is the ammo in your primaries? Really? And it ain’t growin’ barnacles?
An annual inspection and re-thinking of your home security belongs on every calendar. Determine what needs to be done or upgraded and create before-ya-drop-dead deadlines. For firearm protection and placement ’round the house, find the right balance of security and speed of access.
I’m writing this on October 4th, Damon Runyon’s birthday. I mark it because of something he once said. A street guy and a gritty realist, he had a crap-shooter’s worldview. He said “All of life is six to five against.” It’s true. So stack the deck and load the dice.
