shot gun

The boys share a room at my house. They sleep on a bunkbed. Henry on top, Charlie on the bottom. It's a spartan setup. One average sized room with a bunk bed and a dresser. Sharing one dresser is not working out for several reasons. When Henry searches for clothes to wear, he tosses everything out onto the floor. Two, Henry grabs Charlie's clothes. Charlie screams. Henry punches Charlie.

So I decided with the new school year coming it was time to get the boys a second dresser, among other things to make it feel more like home.

Reluctantly, I planned to take them to Ikea. I avoid most shopping because it is loathsome to me for many reasons. Ikea, however, combines my detest of shopping with my fear of being trapped, which makes it a very unpleasant experience. I fear I may never get out. Of course there are signs which point the way and, if followed, will eventually lead to the exits, but the arrows take me through the long and twisted maze, through departments I would never be inclined to visit. Walking the carefully designed route takes hours, the carts are not normal carts with the pivot points I am used to from regular shopping cart, require much more effort to steer. Having any kind of speed approaching corners requires a lot of muscle or the likelihood of running into someone or something is increased.

I get impatient. There are secret passages, and if taken, one can bypass irrelevant, superfluous, browsing departments and exit faster. However, they are purposely well hidden. 

In order to haul the dresser, one of the boys was going to have to ride in the front seat. And for whatever reason, a child is not allowed to ride in the front passenger seat. But necessity is what it is. So I put a booster seat up front and because Charlie is the tallest and the oldest, I allowed him to sit there. 

Henry was extremely disappointed and jealous, because he wants to be equal with Charlie. Charlie knows this and takes the opportunity to subtlely rub it in by making such comments as 

"It's so different up here. It feels like I am on top of the world." and 

"It's like everything is speeding toward me through the windshield" and

"You can see the whole world from up here." and 

"The back seat is for babies." and so on.

And somewhere they picked up that the front passenger seat was also called shotgun. I then remembered how I coveted the front seat and how the world did seem bigger and my views on the world changed and how my ego and self confidence expanded, ex-officio.

I tried to explain the etymology of the term shotgun in the particular usage and probably how it came from bank robbers and the passenger carried a shot gun and shot at the police during their getaways. I told them how, when I was a kid, the first person to leave the house on our way somewhere, to cry out "shotgun!", would be honored with the front passenger seat.

It took two times to check out. The first time with the wrong items. The second time with the correct ones. As we neared the gaping automatic doors, the exit, Henry bolted ahead of Charlie. Crossing the threshold he triumphantly exclaimed "Gun shot!" Several patrons immediately hit the ground, but for me, laughter exploded almost instantly from my heart like buckshot from a smith and wesson.

Henry's world got a little bigger on the way home.