Just another typical day in my chaos‑ridden household. Nothing my children did surprised me. They were mini tornados waiting to touch down. And when you mixed my three with my boyfriend’s two, chaos wasn’t an event — it was the atmosphere we breathed.
They all had BB guns. Everyone in the area did. They knew the rules and showed extreme caution when using them.
Until the day they didn’t.
I made the mistake of leaving the older four in charge of Rowan. I wasn’t going to be long. I thought it was no big deal. Naturally, as siblings do, they were antagonizing each other — the two boys against the two girls. The girls finally got fed up and went outside to escape the teasing. The boys, however, were more upset. They were now stuck with indoor Rowan duty.
Supervising Rowan was easy. He was perfectly content playing video games in the living room. Once he started, nothing could pull him away.
One of the boys decided that if the girls wanted to go outside, they could stay there. They locked the doors. Then, like miniature assassins, they grabbed their BB guns, climbed onto the roof of our two‑story house, and waited.
When the girls finally decided to come back in, all hell broke loose.
The boys became snipers, firing at the girls every time they took a step toward the house. The girls tried to hide, but the boys were faster. Each attempt at entry was met with the sting of a BB. They were frantic — running, screaming, dodging behind bushes.
And as if on cue, I pulled into the driveway and was immediately hit with a stray BB.
The second it happened, the boys knew they were dead. They scrambled back inside through the window and hid their guns.
The girls were covered in bruises. The boys were upstairs in hysterics. They lost their BB guns that day. It was the second BB‑related incident in a few months, and I was determined it wouldn’t happen again.
They graduated to real guns next — against my will, but they did it anyway. This time, I kept them locked up with no ammo in sight.
Still standing, survivor of the BB Gun Wars,
K.
