Fat Woman and the bore

Fat Woman is delighted that Thin Husband is taking up clay pigeon shooting. Whilst Thin Husband is fun to be with and always supportive of Fat Woman's activities he has steadfastly resisted doing any organised activity that Fat Woman has taken part in over the last seventeen years. Fat Woman has done everything from local politics and youth work to golf and gardening and Thin Husband has refused them all. In fact the only time Thin Husband ever said "That sounds fun" was when Fat Woman asked if he would like to go on a hill walking holiday. This was a trap of the most enormous kind because Fat Woman is not only fat but heavy so walking is very slow for her and Thin Husband has a horrible habit of walking five metres in front of her as though this will somehow make Fat Woman develop a higher top speed. Also Fat Woman has bad knees which meant for a long time walking up inclines would cause terrible problems, and horribly wide feet so she can't buy walking boots. So when Thin Husband has turned down offers of every healthy leisure activity Fat Woman could think of and then jumped at the chance of doing the one thing Fat Woman couldn't do, Fat Woman took the hint and left Thin Husband to stew in his nerdy living room cave with the newspapers and the Internet. Thus Thin Husband had happy recharging introvert time doing what he liked, and would be presented with the credit card bill for keeping Fat Woman happy and out of his hair at the end of the month. Fat Woman thinks Thin Husband should count himself lucky that she likes second hand shopping and car boot sales.

Thin Husband now has a gun. Actually, Fat Woman is the legal owner of a lovely Beretta White Onyx 20 bore gun. The Beretta lives in Fat Woman's gun cabinet and is on Fat Woman's licence. Sometimes Fat Woman is gracious enough to take Thin Husband to gun club and let him use her gun. Thin Husband has been trained in gun cleaning so can now clean both guns before Fat Woman locks them away again.

Fat Woman doesn't mind a 20 bore but rather resented the idea that as a woman she would automatically need a 20 bore. Fat Woman has a lovely, well-balanced Browning 425 12 bore that is perfect for a clay shooter of her level, especially now the stock has been cut right down and the horrible pointy toe has been shaved off. When Thin Husband started learning with a 28 bore club gun and suggested he might buy one of those Fat Woman put her foot down. Fat Woman said that not only were 28 bores ridiculously expensive but the cartridges were bloody pricey and annoyingly hard to buy. Fat Woman also said that little children were seen on the clay ground with 20 bore semi automatics and they would point and laugh at a grown man who couldn't handle a 20 bore.

It turned out that Thin Husband was indeed perfectly capable of handling a 20 bore, but decided that he didn't want a semi automatic because shooting is a social activity for Fat Woman and everyone on clay grounds seems to hate semi automatic users (PICK UP YOUR SHELLS!). Fat Woman didn't mind on the grounds that an over and under 20 bore could always be cut down for her if Thin Husband gave up on shooting.

Fat Woman needed more cartridges and now they would need more it made sense to consider buying in bulk. Thin Husband was looking at cartridge prices. It turned out that 20 bore cartridges were approximately £60 per thousand more expensive than 12 bore cartridges. Fat Woman shrugged and said that was the price Thin Husband would have to pay for having a girly 20 bore. This was a little mean of Fat Woman, but she considers Thin Husband would be perfectly capable of getting used to a 12 bore, and this is the effect of his choices.

Thin Husband put his head on one side and in his most reasonable voice pointed out to Fat Woman that it was a lot more cost effective for him to shoot a 20 bore than to pay for three sessions a week for Personal Trainer to build up his strength.

Anyone who thinks Fat Woman is always right should meet Thin Husband.