Help, It's broken and I can't shoot crap!

So it's T-minus 5 days until the big skeet shoot. I'm not a bad shot but I've never shot in front of a crowd. Heck, I've never shot in front of anybody but a couple of friends and family. Oh, and I've never shot skeet in a professional format. I'm a little nervous about looking like an idiot in front of, oh, 50 or more co-workers.

I call my workout buddy and see if he'll pull targets for me on Sunday afternoon. I pack up and head to the range. I take about 15 warm up shots, taking my time, calling for the targets, and hitting probably 12 of 15. I'm jazzed. I'll be fine. I give my buddy a turn and then I set up and load. We discuss the format, 30 birds in 60 seconds, 2 shooters, 15 shells apiece, can only load 2 at a time. After we work out the math, we realize I'll have to fire 2 rounds in 4 seconds, load 2 shells in 3 seconds to give me 1 second to aim for the next 2 rounds. Holy crap!

I give it a shot. This is way hard. I fumble with the shells, dropping some on the ground, taking too long to turn them the right way. I may have hit 1 bird out of 10 before I had to stop because I was totally worn out and breathing hard. I let my buddy try. Then the shotgun jammed. I was a little freaked because we couldn't get the live shell out of the chamber. I knew we weren't supposed to leave our lane with ammo in the gun. I sure as hell didn't want to drive home with a shell stuck in the chamber.

We managed to jimmy it out and tried again. Jammed. "Screw this, get it out and let's go home," I told him. We went back to my house and tore it down, cleaned it and put it back together. Buddy says, "Let's try loading it with the safety on and see if it still jams."

"Ahhh, not in the house dude. Let's take it out front." We go to the front yard and try to load it. It jams. We jimmy the shell out and try again. It jams. I realized this might look bad for my neighbors to see us standing in the front yard, loading and reloading my shotgun. "Let's call it a day. I'll have to take it to a gunsmith tomorrow. This sucks!"

I run up to the gun shop early this morning only to be told the turnaround time is 10 to 13 days. No good I tell them. I need it Friday. They say Ok and I ask if I can pick it up Thursday, close of business. "No, I meant Friday 3 pm." "But the event starts at 9 am Friday morning in a town 3 hours away from here." I'm told sorry but they are already rushing it for me.

I go back to the office and start calling every gun shop within 60 miles of town. I find one that says their turnaround time is just 3 days. Perfect, I'll have it back in time to attend on Friday. I just won't have any time to practice or test the gun.

So I head back to the gun shop around 3:30 pm to retrieve my shotgun and get it to the new gunsmith before they close at 5:30 pm. A guy asks if he can help me. "Yeah, I dropped my shotgun off this morning but I've located someone that can look at it right away. Can you get it for me." I hand him my claim ticket. He heads to the back and doesn't reappear for like 10 minutes.* I was starting to wonder where the hell my shotgun was when he comes out and lays it on the counter.

"It's done."

"Excuse me?"

"It's fixed."

"Are you SHITTING me?" I practically scream it at him.

"Ahhh, no ma'am... I'm not shitting you."

"It's FIXED? What was wrong? See I was going to have to cancel.. What happened? They told me 10 to 13 days this morning... I have a company skeet shoot on Friday and I wasn't going to be able to shoot... What did he find? It's fixed? Really?"

"Well, you must have impressed someone because its fixed. There's no charge, its still under warranty. He adjusted blah, blah, blah." (I quit listening after the "its free" part)

"It's fixed? There's no charge? I can shoot stuff? Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

I've got my baby back and time to blow stuff up before the big day (T-minus 4 days and counting).

*Of course I'm totally convinced that they fixed it during the 10 minute period that he was "looking" for it because they knew it was under warranty and didn't want to lose the money if I took it somewhere else.