When a Nintendo game comes to life

I recently attended a fundraiser for our school out at the Big River Lodge. I feel certain they’ve been hosting this Clay Shoot Competition event for years, but I’ve never had the chance to attend before now.

Okay, that may be a tiny little fib. Two years running, I honestly had a conflict coaching volleyball in Timbuktu or who knows where. Last year, though, I specifically recall chickening out of this outdoor event when the temperature dropped below 40 and tiny little raindrops started blowing in my face like so many assault needles.

Now I’m not opposed to the cold all together. I do really hate it. More than I hate the trains or the mosquitoes around here.

But I learned during our spontaneous SnowWeek+ in February this year that I can endure the misery if properly clothed. So if you see me out here wearing essentially an ankle-length hooded sleeping bag as a coat, mind your business.

Most folk around here know how to bundle up because they like to hunt.

I’m ashamed to admit to you in whispered tones that we don’t hunt, and if you tried to talk my kids into hunting by starting with the ungodly hour y’all have to wake up, you’d fail miserably.

This is important to remember for my story. I know what a clay shoot is the way you know what the Olympic sport of curling is-a vague recollection from the past with a general idea of how it works.

For me, the extent of my clay shoot experience stems from the old original Nintendo game, Duck Hunt, where you’d point your plastic gun at the television when the 8-bit orange circles flew across the screen, and if you missed, that belittling beagle would pop up on the screen and snigger at you.

Teeheeheeheehee.

By Friday, the Weather Channel had convinced me that the next day would be ideal for a little outdoor socializing on the patio around the crawfish bucket. My son had volunteered as part of his required service hours, so we got on out there by 8am, me stumbling around trying to get the coffee mug in the general vicinity of my lips.

I found myself in the volunteer room with my son, and then I found myself assigned to run a clay shoot station. Alone. I timidly meandered outside to find a ride to my station.

When I stepped off the ATV, I walked in front of a metal frame where a small silver button rested and asked, “Okay so do I stand here?”

My driver chuckled. “Nope, that’s where the shooters stand.”

“Oh,” I giggled, “and do I say ‘Pull’ or do they say ‘Pull’?”

Another chuckle from my driver.

So if anyone wonders, the shooter will say pull, and all I have to do is push the button from a safe distance away, “safe” being determined at a later moment after being accosted by an expelled shotgun shell.

Of course none of you wonder because you all hunt.

The first team showed up a man short and asked if they could just rotate who took the extra turn. I had absolutely no clue about the rules of the game, so I sure did make something up on the spot. They all trusted me because I had the button box in my hand.

The next team asked me twice, “Did I hit it?” and the answer was always yes, according to my quickly developed personal philosophy that if you have to ask, you definitely hit it.

My station was fun, I learned, because the clay disc rolled out over the ground like a rabbit. If it hit the ground just right, it would jump in the air so high that if it were a real rabbit, you’d be wondering what in the Genetic Modification is going on!

So then … Sigh. Y’all. I successfully ran four teams out of 24 through my station before my mojo attacked.

The shooter said, “Pull!” I responded by pressing the button.

Nothing happened. No disc, no whirring.

I pressed again. Nothing. I broke the machine, as I am wont to do.

I don’t do it on purpose! It’s like a little leprechaun follows me around and tangles up electrical wires, loosens oil pan nuts, destroys engine cylinders, rips off pieces of my roof, or mangles every single appliance I have purchased over the last 13 years in my home.

And this time, his target was my only job. The dumb button.

I called for help, and to my increasing embarrassment and chagrin, I did not receive an answer. Five very long minutes passed before I sent an SOS on the walkie talkie, now informing every other volunteer and all the competitors about my failure.

The fellow who showed up to fix it just deep-belly guffawed when he saw me standing there, lame in the water as it were. He said, “I follow you on Facebook, and this doesn’t surprise me at all!”

Sadly, it doesn’t surprise me either.

Well he fiddled and finagled around until it worked again and the rest of the morning went on without incident.

The final hour of the event, I spent perusing the incredible crawfish boil platters and bidding at the silent auction bake sale, where I scored the juiciest smoked turkey I have ever tasted and a delicious cherry chocolate cake.

The day held much more warmth and happiness than I had hoped, but next year, to be true to the sport as I learned it in the ’90s, I’m definitely bringing out a beagle to ridicule those poor souls who miss.

Teeheeheeheehee.

Dorothy Wilson lives in Marion, Arkansas, with her husband Chris as they enjoy all of the adventures that live with their seven children brings.

Dorothy Wilson

The Marion Mom