Funny Stories

All of these stories are true!

(Article in their own words by: Commander Gillmore)

Okay, our first thought was that this was some kinda regional humor around Taylor, Ark., but Kathy Strickland of Ark-La Outdoors swears it's true, and she'll slap the stuffing out of anybody who impugns her veracity. Of course, she could hardly believe it herself.
Kathy was on duty in the shop, busily outfitting hunters for squirrel season. In fact, they had a sale on vests made specifically to meet the needs of such hunters, and prominently displayed a large sign proclaiming "Squirrel Vests $11.99" accompanying her tourist-hunter husband, a lady from Minnesota came in, browsed around for a bit, looked at the sale sign, and incredulously asked Kathy, "They make vests for squirrels?"
Yes, Kathy assures us, the lady was quite serious. And really interested in seeing these tiny little squirrel vests. Kathy gently took her aside for a quiet woman-to-woman explanation.
All right you guys, I know what you're thinking. Now cut it out. That's cruel, and you probably couldn't get anybody to sew up a vest that small anyway.

This happened one day in the store and was so funny to mom that she sent the incident in to "Shooting Industry" Magazine and they printed it in the July 1997 issue in their funny section.
"Squirrel Vest"

"What's a Minnow-Cage?"

First, let me point out that there is a difference between a Minnow Bucket and a Cricket Cage! The minnow bucket of course like any other bucket has solid sides for holding in water so that the minnows can swim around. The cricket cage has near to equal tiny holes all over the side of the cage so that the crickets can climb around and spread out (not smother) etc... However most cricket cages are easy to tell that they are cricket cages but this one was designed differently.
Second let me describe this certian cricket cage. It has a flat red bottom and a red top that you can take off to grab a cricket for fishing. The side is a white plastic upside down cone shape with alot of holes in it, Note: the holes are visible to the naked eye. Now on with the true story.

One day a guy walks in the store and grabs a cricket cage then starts to hand it to my dad and with a serious look on his face asks my dad. "Could I have 2 dozen minnows please?" My dad looked at the guy and explained to him that there was no way that a minnow could survive in a cricket cage for very long.

"Wooden Paddle vs. Plastic Paddle"

A boat paddle is well known to everyone 'I assume' if not here's a run down of what one is. The handle is long (or it can be short) and skinny. The top of a paddle has a some-what of a tee handle for griping, and the bottom of a paddle is flat and wide used for pushing against water. A paddle can be any lenght. Here at Ark-La Outdoors we have two types of paddles, solid wood, and solid plastic just incase you ever are around and need a paddle for fishing. By looking at the paddles you can tell which is plastic and which is wooden. The rack that they are in has two sides in it and a sign that says Solid wood on the wooden paddle side.

One day this lady comes in and walks over to the paddle rack in the store. She picks up a plastic paddle, holds it, looks at it and then sets it down back in the rack. After walking around for a few minutes she comes to the front counter and asks my mom "Do ya'll have any plastic boat paddles?" My mom looks at the lady in kind of a shocked state and points to the boat paddle rack and says "Over there!" The lady then looks back at my mom with a kind of embarrassing face and says. "I saw the sign on that rack and I just assumed that they where all wooden."

"The day the lights went out at Ark-la!"

Thursday November 7th 2002:
An old gunsmith "Guy who works on guns!" comes in my mom's store thanking her and my dad for giving him some business and gives them these little bread roll thingies that his wife made. While in the store he looks at a few rifles that are there (one someone wants us to sell for them, the other is my dads and the other belongs to a friend of my dads). He picks the one for sell up and looks to see if its loaded or not. He sees that it's not so he pulls back cocks the gun and pulls the trigger seeing how much of a pull the trigger has on it. He then picks up my dads, does the same thing seeing its not loaded. Then he picks up my dad's friends gun doesn't see if its loaded or not and cocks it back and pulls on the trigger just barely (not all the way) then he pulls all the way and shoots out one of our lights in the store which causes the row the light is on to go out with the other row on the same circuit. Then the guy says "That thing was loaded wasn't it?" my mom goes "Uh, yeah!" I walk up to the front counter where they are standing (guy still has the gun in his hand) and he says "Did ya hear that pop?" I say "Um, who couldn't?" then I go to look at the light that he shot out and took some pictures with my AIPTEK PenCam I got from Wal-Mart. (Pictures below)

The gunsmith dude then just giggles and laughs and makes conversation talking about the time he once shot his ring finger off of his right hand and had it reattached, and the time he shot himself in the leg. So he then leaves...

Click on an image for a larger view.

Thursday November 8th 2002:
We managed to get the lights working in the store that went out due to that one light going out. But that light's ballast will have to be replaced in order for the light to work again.

"The Tale of the Hunter that Throwed Up"

Each year around Hunting Season, Hunters come in to our store to tell their hunting tales to other hunters or even us. Each one is basically the same story about how they saw the Deer in their sights fired upon them and killed them out deader than a door knob. There's also the usual "The rack on that deer was this big! (extends their arms about 4 foot apart from one another way up in the air above their head)" A.K.A the oversized rack that the deer had. If you ever actually listen to one of these stories they all have this sentence or phrase somewhere in the story. "I seen that deer, throwed up and shot at him!"

For those of you who do not know what the term "Throwed Up" means used in this context, roughly translated into proper English it means "Took Aim".