Coming To Terms With The Fact That I'll Never Be An Expert Marksman

There are alot of unfulfilled dreams in every person's life. Maybe your dad wanted to be an astronaut when he was a boy. Perhaps you dreamed of being a firefighter, or an archaeologist like Indiana Jones, just whipping the hell out of savage cannibals while stealing their golden monkey skulls. Maybe George W. Bush dreamed of being president. The point is, there's a variety of reasons that a lot of people didn't end up where they wanted to be in life and instead are forced to clerk a two bit operation and pray intensely to nobody in particular that some hapless Jew broad leaves fifty dollars in change like that one time three months ago.

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a sniper. I don't know why, but something about the art of putting a bullet hole in someones head from a thousand yards away appeals to me in a very special and beautiful way. Whenever we used to run around and play army as kids, I would always set up my camp in the bushes with my rifle and lay down a bit and relax. Probably because I was a pudgy shit and tired of running, but there in the trenches is where I learned to love the long range shot.

"I got you!", I'd shout. "You're dead!"

"Nuh uh! Nuh uh!" they'd respond, "How can you hit me from so far?"

I didn't know what a scope was back then, so I'd just say magic, which settled any and all arguements. Later on in my late teens when we played army, I finally knew better. It was sniper mojo. The art of firing a cylindrical shaft of death into someones unsuspecting face area.

Luckily for us sniper enthusiasts, there is no lack of media featuring our favorite melon poppers. There's always a sniper type weapon in most action oriented games, loathed by all except sniper enthusiasts who can appreciate the undeniable talent of sitting in a dark nook with a one shot kill weapon and lazily clicking on people when they chance to stop nearby.

Then there was the game that truly brought precision shooting to new heights; Perfect Dark. You know what I'm talking about baby. Right now the sniper fans are nodding and the fodder are getting ready to yell out "Fuck you cheater!" like an ingrained reflex because their friend grabbed that goddamned Farsight weapon again and shot them through five feet of concrete, a stairwell, a steel door, a marble pillar, a diamond window pane (possibly made of glass), and a miniature black hole that spontaneously came into existance in the path of the Farsights shot, so you'd get all pissy and start throwing N-bombs all over the place even though we agreed on no n-bombs beforehand, god I fucking hate you Alan!

Anyway. After several years of brainwashing by video games, movies, and true to life crime stories, I decided I wanted to be an expert marksman. That was my goal in life. My heroes weren't Batman, Superman, or other types of -men, but real life people, like Charles Whitman who landed a head shot on a pregnant woman's baby from three hundred yards, and Lee Harvey Oswald who blew away a President (barring any conspiracy, I know, don't black list me and bring up my alliance with the new world order at your next smoked out Ramada Inn bar meeting you conspiracy faggots), not because of what they did, which was heinous, but because they could shoot by god.

So what did I do to achieve this goal? Well. Not really anything. I want to be an expert marksman, but there are a lot of reasons this won't fly. First off, I have horrendous eye sight and am not eligible for corrective surgery, because I can't afford it. So just showing up at Sniper School with poor vision is probably some kind of problem right away. I mean maybe they'd let me be equipment manager or something, but fuck that!

Secondly, if you can't tell, I have mental disorders that would most likely prevent me from acting cool under pressure. Like if I were in Terroristan with a dope ass ghillie suit draped over me, and while laying on the ground I saw The King of Terrorists five hundred feet away about to push a comically large plunger that would detonate all the world leaders in the world, I'd probably have a hard time coming to grips with shooting him and making it a true shot. I'd miss and he'd sic some goons on me and I'd end up on my knees with a blindfold in some Al Zarqawi's Funniest Home Videos program. It'd be a whole messy affair.

These days I'm content to just keep using long distance rifle weapons in video games and watching movies that feature snipers (Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, Enemy At The Gates, to name a few), and hope and dream and wish that one day I can be good enough to blow peoples heads off for money and fame. The dark thoughts have crossed my mind of course, getting a scoped rifle and just becoming some kind of vigilante crimestopper, shooting drug dealers, and crackheads and jaywalkers with wreckless abandon, but alas, I've never even fired a real gun, and I'm 90% certain that if I did, I'd wince horribly and mewl like a little girl and possibly urinate in my pants a little. The life of a sniper is just one I was never meant to know.