The gods of shooting are fickle. They like to cut down the knees of those who get a bit cocky. Take the case of Robert, he is a good shooter and takes his craft seriously. Yet last Saturday he was feeling his oats because his main “competition” for the day was his lovely wife.

Here he is seconds before his downfall. Look at his smug face

The stage was simple: 2 fields of bowling pins on the right and left side of the barrels. Mission was simply to take them all out in the shortest time possible. The timer went off and so he did with pins flying off the stands, an occasional miss easily recovered and then: One Blue Bowling Pin that refused to fall as ordered. And God he tried, and re shot it over and over. He checked his breathing, his front sight, pressed the trigger ever so gently but the sucker remained standing there mocking him. He cussed and berated at his luck sending more and more rounds downrange and still the blue pin remained motionless. He eventually ran out of ammo, but kind souls tossed him spare magazines hoping he would hit the blue pin and the curse lifted. Not such luck. Eventually the gun grew hot enough for the Made In Austria engraving to melt away and Robert had to admit defeat. If you ask him, he will tell you that a pair of tiny arms and hands sprouted from the sides of the pin and gave him a double load of the Finger as goodbye.

Next came Laura, his soulmate and whip cracker. A sweet young lady with a perpetual smile except when targets are ahead.

The timer once more emitted its beep. Laura drew and pins started to fall without hesitation. One trigger pull, one pin went to meet the ground. Relentless and scary in her precision, it was a sight to see. So intimidating that witnesses say the last pin, the Evil Blue Pin rather than face true ballistic ignominy, decide to commit target suicide and jumped from the stand to oblivion as she pulled the trigger one last time. She cleaned the stage.

That would be enough for any couple. She bested him on the stage that brought him to shame knowing that his fellow shooters will keep the “shame” going for at least two or three months just to torture him. But that was not all. When all the scores were in and all four stages totaled, the hard truth came down crashing down like a pallet of ammunition: She kicked his ass overall by 52.58 seconds.

I did warn everybody this was going to be the Year of The Lady Dragon.