January 22, 2007

Another Lesson Learned

Sometimes you have to take a step back and ask yourself, "what the ef did I do that for?"

I had one of those moments today shortly after I confirmed that my eardrum was ruptured.

You see, it started off as a little trip over to the indoor shooting range to play with bad boy toys for a couple of hours. Now I admit I am not a marksman by any stretch of the imagination. I used to own a rifle when I still lived with my parents as a young teenager, but it has been locked in their gun safe ever since my brooding phase 15 years ago. And I've never owned a handgun.

But my friend Jim recently bought a pistol, so we took it to the range for its inaugural firing. We rented a .40 caliber Springfield to compare to his .22 caliber, and we loaded up with about a 1000 rounds of ammo.

We played for a couple of hours, and all was well until we started to gather our stuff to leave. Another guy had started firing his .45 in the stall next to us, and I noticed that his gun was so much louder than either of the ones we had been firing.

I realized why his gun seemed so much louder when I exited the range and pulled out my earplugs, only to find that my left ear plug apparently had fallen out at some point. I couldn't hear a thing with that ear.

When I got to work this evening I had a colleague check my eardrum for me, and of course, it has a nice hole in it.

What the ef did I do that for?

Note to self: If you go shooting again, buy some decent ear protection first...

10 comments:

TJ said...

you're gonna shoot your eye out....errr ear.
i've got a handgun (45 mag) in my closet which was handed down to me from a family member. i've never fired it, but if i do, i'll be sure and take your advice and get some decent ear protection.
is this something that will heal or is the damage permanent?

Born To Endure said...

Oh my...hope it heals!!!

Brian said...

Just came across your blog. Always nice to find another Tri Blog. Did my first IM this year, best of luck with your training. Its totally worth it all!!!

Laurie said...

Ouch. You look like you should be a bad guy in a movie. Well maybe the good guy since you are wearing a cross.

DV said...

tj - yea, it almost always is back to basically normal in a few weeks. just have to make sure to cork the ear before swimming so i don't get chlorine brain!

LoneStarCrank said...

Ahhhh the price of doing dude things. Good luck swimming with that thing. Sounds painful!

Anonymous said...

CHLORINE BRAIN!! hehe... ok for some reason that struck me as funny. But I'm laughing with you...

Hope it heals well, and maybe with a superpower!

Lisa said...

Hope it heals fast so you it doesn't mess with your swimming.

Robin said...

Ouch, hope it heals up. I've used those earmuff type of hearing protectors on the firing range, and they seem to do the trick.

Bigun said...

At the range, back in the day, I always used the big "ear muff" variety - especially since indoor ranges are so much louder than outdoor firing - like I'm telling you something you don't already know...."ON THE LEFT", "WHAT?"....