12 bore shotgun

When I was about 13, I fired a 12 bore shotgun. My dad took me and my sister up the mountain with his mate to pick mushrooms (the kind you eat without thinking you’re the rounder half of French and Saunders). It was dead exciting; we got up really early and trekked up through farmer’s fields in our best wellies and waterproof coats and spent a good few hours picking loads of lovely mushrooms. I can remember thinking how chuffed Mam would be when we brought back bulging bags of stuff we could eat, like real foragers. I planned to eat nothing but hand-picked mushrooms until they ran out. Then I took a closer look and saw that the mushrooms had little worms in them and I wasn’t quite so keen.
Anyhow, back to the shotgun.
Being the bolshy little sod that I was back then, I kept nagging my dad’s mate for a go of his gun. I’d shot air rifles before – no problem - and I wanted to trade up to something proper. Eventually, he said I could have a go and gave me a quick tutorial on how to fire the gun, which I thought was a bit daft and unnecessary as the thing only had a barrel and a trigger and I had enough aptitude to tell which was which, so I didn’t really pay attention. Maybe his mistake was in letting me hold it while he talked.
We collectively decided that I would aim for a puddle on the edge of the field. No problemo, I thought. I raised the gun, blimey it was heavy, and took shaky aim. So engrossed was I in hitting the target and showing off in front of my sister that I forgot the one cardinal rule of firing something with a kick meaner than a mule when the vet calls round with his rubber gloves already on: tuck the non-firing end deep into your shoulder. I very quickly understood this rule when I, having left a good centimetre gap between shoulder and said non-barrel-end, pulled the trigger and the kick almost sent me to the mushroom-strewn ground. I had a bruise for weeks, but worse than that, I missed the puddle by a couple of inches.
Bastard.
Next time the opportunity to shoot the shit out of a puddle presents itself, boy-oh-boy I’ll be ready though.