in which the author is once more left to feel that his mother, however much-much beloved, doesn't really know him so well

Sunday afternoon on the family farm, I walk into the kitchen where my mother and sister are sitting. "Hey Jeremy," my mother says, brightly, "Do you have a gun?"

Turns out that the sheriff's department in the county back home had this gun safety promotion where they planned to give away free gun locks to people in the county. They ordered a certain number of gun locks presumably based on some expectation based on the population of the county (~11,000), the % of people who own a gun, and the % of gun-owners who would be interested in a free gun lock. Saying something perhaps about both the gun-safety attitudes and the statistical competence of the county cizenry, few were interested in the promotion and the sheriff's department was left with hundreds of gun locks left over. A cousin of mine who works for the sheriff* asked my mom if she wanted a case of 25, and, given their stocking-stuffer potential, my mom said yes.

* I have three cousins who are police officers in the county where I grew up. Only once has this directly assisted in maintaining my unblemished record of no moving violations.