We all grow up experiencing events and behaviours that we come to think of as normal and typical. It's only when we go into other people's homes that we realize that, hey! Wait a minute! That wasn't normal?
I took for granted that one vacationed on the Mediterranean every summer, going to all-inclusive resorts on the island of Corsica. Oh, wait! Rewind! Nope - not typical.
A friend, lets call her Dyans, told me about her father, a professional target shooter who consistently ranks in the top twenty in Ontario. As a child, she frequently witnessed her father assuming a positively motionless pose as he stretched across the basement floor in full gear. While Dyans' father, an extremely safety conscious man, never had a loaded gun in the house, he would nonetheless put on all his gear from knee pads to helmet to goggles to gloves. He would then use the one bit of space where he could assume the position with his rifle in hand, thereby blocking access to the children's television. While my friend's siblings found this obstruction daunting, she herself used to nimbly step over her father's form to access the television. She never thought of this nor of her father's hobby as anything other than ordinary until a friend of hers came over to play. Dyans stepped over her Dad, who, as usual, did not move a muscle but kept his rifle aimed at the target he'd placed on the basement wall. Dyans' buddy refused to follow Dyans. She stood, wide-eyed and shivering on the other side of Dyans' father. Dyans gave up on the television watching idea then and accompanied her friend back up the stairs.
Once they were safely out of earshot, Dyans' friend whispered, "He's not dead, is he?"
Inspiration comes from the strangest places indeed...
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