Bulletproof Whiskey Set

 I don’t know about you, but every morning when I check my email I find 75-100 pieces of email waiting for me to read.  There are some that came from newsletters I subscribed to, but most of them are just junk that somehow slipped through my email’s spam filter.  I usually spend a few minutes deleting the spam and then go back and read the others before deleting them or filing them away in a folder that I’ll probably never open.

This morning as I was marking the spam for deletion there was one piece of junk mail that caught my eye.  It was from an online gun place advertising a “bulletproof whiskey set.”  I had never heard of such a thing and my curiosity got the best of me so I opened it.

Now, you might be wondering why I get email from an online gun dealer.  A few years ago I decided to get a State of Nebraska Concealed Carry permit.  I’m not exactly sure why, but I went through the training, passed the test, and received the permit in the mail after a few weeks.  The next order of business was to get a handgun that I could carry should I ever get the urge to do so.  I browsed several online sites where they sold such weapons and read a lot about them so I could make sure to get one that would work well for me.  I subscribed to a number of daily newsletters dealing with concealed carry and used them as a source of information to make my decision.  Today, despite having unsubscribed to all of them multiple times, they still show up regularly in my inbox.  By the way, I carried a handgun everywhere for a short time before deciding that it wasn’t worth the trouble.  I have a deal with the Omaha Police.  I let their highly trained officers protect me because that's their job, not mine.  In return, they don’t go around fixing computers because that’s my job, not theirs.

Anyway, I clicked on the bulletproof whiskey set and started reading about it.  It consisted of four rocks glasses and a decanter, all made of bulletproof glass.  It was on sale for only $150 today only.  If I really wanted to immediately spend $150 then there are a number of other things I would spend it on since I really don’t drink whiskey or scotch.  And if I somehow acquired a taste for it I would probably just drink some out of the same beat up old jelly jar I use for wine, tequila, vodka, and pretty much any other alcohol that comes my way.

Nevertheless, I read on.  The description said it was specially crafted to survive a “vigorous bugout.”  I wasn’t too clear on what that meant so I looked it up.  When you have to bugout it means that someone is after you intending to do you great harm and you have to leave your current location very quickly and flee to a different one.  I thought about this for a minute.  If Tanya and I had to bugout and run for our lives, we’d probably take a little food, our pets, maybe a gun, our phones, and some camping gear.  We wouldn’t be too concerned about taking along four rocks glasses and a decanter of bourbon.  It’s unlikely that when we reached a safe place we would set up our camp and then immediately pour a nice round of cocktails and invite some neighbors over.

And another thing.  Why would you advertise an alcohol-related item on a site where people buy guns?  It’s not like alcohol and guns go together like peanut butter and jelly.  When we go to our friend’s farm to shoot targets with them on the 4th of July, there is a lot of drinking but the rule is that all the guns are secured and stored away safely long before a single cocktail is poured for anyone.  It’s just common sense.

After deleting that message I didn’t think about it again until I was driving to the grocery store over lunch.  One of the reasons I canceled our membership at a nice gun range nearby was that we really didn’t like the gun culture that we found there.  After people finished shooting, they usually gathered in a common area in the showroom and discussed guns.  The conversations always turned into discussions of a particular caliber’s “stopping power” and how many shots it would take to kill someone.  And they discussed all the tactical gear they carried around all day.  And they discussed their second amendment rights and how they were preparing for widespread civil unrest and general mayhem that is sure to occur in the next few years because of the liberals.  We were there to shoot targets, not train for WWIII.  It doesn’t take a pistol and loads of tactical gear to subdue a target.  You can do that with a clothes pin.  When we were done shooting we usually just secured our guns, cleaned up our lane, and went home.

I think the gun culture has gotten a little out of hand.  There are too many people running around and trying to project an image like they are highly trained Special Forces operatives whose sworn duty is to protect our way of life from all enemies, foreign or domestic.  In reality I think they are just a bunch of tragically stupid, fat, balding, uneducated, middle aged white men who barely have the stamina to get off the couch and go to the refrigerator to get another can of Old Milwaukee.  Rather than learn about what’s going on in the world, they spend their time cruising the web for information on the latest ridiculous conspiracy theory and then go out in public trying to project some kind of hard-ass image.  It’s really very sad.