The Big Rubber Man
The Big Rubber Man is great company on the range. However, leave him in the
wrong place and he will scare the bejeebers out of your family.
It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you. Truth be known, we are all just a little bit paranoid. Anyone who carries a gun regularly does so in anticipation of something potentially bad happening. A little paranoia can be a good thing. A lot can quickly become intolerable.
That paranoia can manifest in a zillion little ways. The healthy sort just ensures you remain aware of your surroundings. That can keep you from being hit by a car or struck by a falling paint can. The other end of the spectrum involves sitting on the floor of a dark closet with aluminum foil wrapped around your head, Googling chemtrails.
Some of that paranoia can be situational or environmental. It’s easy to let your guard down while visiting a buddy at the local police station. By contrast, your imagination can get the better of you when walking alone through the woods after dark.
The Setting
We live way out in the country. At the risk of sounding crude, if I can’t freely wander about my yard in my underpants, I really don’t much want to live there. I am an unrepentant apostle of wilderness living. However, one dark aspect of such pervasive solitude is that you are invariably your own first responder.
And that is really kind of the point of the Second Amendment in the first place. There are lots of times when the cops just can’t be there in a timely fashion. Under those circumstances, the responsible American assumes responsibility. Such a mindset is what helped craft our great nation in the first place.
The Bad Guy
One of the many cool aspects of my job as a gun writer is that good folks send me things. Little, expensive items and most guns usually get sent back when you’re done. Big, cheap examples invariably become gifts. Return shipping can be prohibitive.
Do that for three decades, and you will start to accumulate some decent stuff. I once did a review of a giant gas-powered wood splitter. A big truck delivered the thing. I put it together, split a season’s worth of firewood, shot plenty of pictures and attempted to wax eloquently about the experience. Once the article hit newsstands, I asked if they’d like their splitter back. The splitter people just laughed. It was really too big for our needs, so I gifted it to a friend. He used the machine to make a small business.
Among all of the stuff I have accumulated through the years, one item has actually sort of become part of the family. There aren’t any adoption papers or anything, but I have developed a great deal of affection for him. We call him the Big Rubber Man.
The company is called Rubber Dummies. They make humanoid three-dimensional targets out of recycled tires. These guys are tougher than John Wayne’s jockstrap. You can shoot the snot out of them, and they just keep coming back for more.
Rubber dummies are also really heavy. They sit atop a big steel frame and are sufficiently rugged to absorb gunfire. In dim light, they also look like a real person — a big, menacing, scary real person.
Maybe the Big Rubber Man was just trying to exact vengeance when he crept up on my bride.
After all, I have been fairly rough on the guy.
The Problem
I’m also an unrepentant pig. I’m cursed with the clutter gene. As a result, my world is chaos. It remains veritably awash in stuff. Some people are just naturally neat. Tragically, I am not one of those people.
Superimpose that atop a profession that involves a great deal of swag, and I might be mistaken for a hoarder. When Rubber Dummies sent me the Big Rubber Man, I set him up inside our homeschool room to keep him out of the elements. My long-suffering bride said he gave her the creeps and asked that I find him a new home. I dutifully moved him to the back porch out of the way.
One day, I came home from work to find my wife reading in her chair with my HK VP9 on the floor beside her. There’s only one reason that ever happens. That means something weird or unsettling has occurred in my absence. I inquired regarding the details.
My spouse was tidying up around the house when she pulled the curtains back, obscuring the sliding glass door that we never use downstairs. She was shocked to find the Big Rubber Man staring her in the face at a slant range of perhaps six inches. Like an idiot, I had arranged him face-first against the door when I moved him outside. The experience rendered that poor woman justifiably discomfited, to put it mildly.
The Big Rubber Man is actually quite robust.
The Aftermath
We had a nice talk, and the Big Rubber Man got a new home — a better home behind the outside stairs where he remains all but invisible. I can still drag him out for play dates when we need to go shooting together, but he’ll not be sneaking up on anybody anymore. Just in case you thought being married to a gun writer was all unicorns and butterflies, there are apparently some who might feel otherwise.
