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I may have failed to mention this before, but I have a serious girl crush on Jennifer Garner’s character Sydney Bristow in Alias. She kicks some serious spy ass. Alias is my all time favorite tv show of all time, no contest. My father and I used to watch it together every Sunday night. He liked all of Sydney’s sexy outfits, I liked Sydney’s handler Michael Vaughn and watching Sydney shoot bullet holes in the bad guys. It was a serious bonding experience. Ever since discovering Alias, I have been 100%, completely convinced that it is my calling in life to be a spy.
Now, everyone who has ever met me, even briefly, can attest to the fact that I would make the worst spy ever. I have a very low tolerance for pain, and am terrible at keeping secrets-both of which are good attributes to have as a spy. But still, I have never given up on the dream, and even occasionally peruse the CIA website for open positions. Its going to happen people.
I figured that before showing up at The Farm for my spy training, I should do a little training on my own, and so, #20 on the list was born-shoot a handgun. I’ve shot plenty of guns in my life, I grew up in NH and we’re just a little hick, but those were all shot guns and rifles. I had never shot a handgun, and everyone knows that all spys shoot hand guns. Thugs too, but I was going for spy.
That’s my scary spy face and Sydney‘s scary spy face…We’re practically twins…In fact, I think I look more intimidating. WATCH OUT!
Fortunately, my dad is the proud owner of several handguns (something I never realized until I pursued this venture), and he bravely offered to bring me along to the shooting range and let me have at it. Dad has a 22 caliber revolver and several very scary semi-automatic hand guns that he brought a long for our little adventure.
It was a beautiful day for shooting things
The man has some seriously scary guns
Now, I talk a big talk about wanting to live an incognito spy life, but I was seriously terrified of shooting these guns-I mean look at them! Those things could kill you! I was scared to the point that my dad and Ollie were taking bets as to if I would scream and drop the gun after the first shot (I didn’t thank you very much).
My dad started me off small with a 22 caliber revolver that had belonged to his father. It wasn’t a spy gun, but it was definitely a cowgirl gun so I was ok with that. Shooting the revolver was a lot of fun, and had very little backlash, but it was lacking the serious adrenaline rush I had heard comes with the shooting of a handgun. So dad moved me up to the semiautomatic weapons.
Welcome to the gun show
Now the semi-automatics. Those were terrifying. I had to start out with just one bullet in the magazine to make sure I didn’t accidentally go on a shooting spree and kill everyone. Ya. That would have been bad. But once I got a hand of the semi-automatics I realized they weren’t scary-THEY WERE FUN! And the fun continued when my dad replaced the boring square targets with awesome person shaped ones like I always saw Sydney shooting at in Alias.
I gave Bob a kill shot to the head…and was more than a little excited about it
Sorry Bob…But I’m not sorry
After shooting 15 bullets out of a semi-automatic handgun, I felt like I could more than give Miss Bristow a run for her money in the “Hottest Lady Spy” contest. And then my dad set up the tennis balls as targets. Epic fail. He and Ollie each hit one, but I didn’t come near it. But I didn’t let that get me down. I gave Bob the target a kill shot to the head…and several that were a little to the right, and left, of Bob, but that’s ok-we’ll pretend those didn’t happen.
I had a great time at the range crossing #20 of my to-do list! I was on cloud nine as we drove away from the range, my desire to pursue a career in the CIA renewed and an odd desire to re-watch all 5 seasons of Alias….which I might actually do.
Have you all ever shot a hand gun? Or any type of gun? Isn’t it fun? Because I felt like a MAJOR badass afterwards. Don’t be surprised if I go rouge and stop writing this blog…If you never hear from me again its because I’m doing super secret work in the name of our country….shhhhhhhhhh!
Thanks for reading! xo Whitney
Head over to 25 by Twenty five’s facebook page to see more photos from the range!
Does my mint green nail polish detract from my badass factor?
