The ultimate stress reliever: Blasting Precious Moments figurines with a shotgun

I'm in Missouri where my brother, sister and I, under the supervision of our 99-year-old mother, are packing up mom's house.

After 79 years of what mom calls "housekeeping," she has sold her home and moved into an assisted living joint. By the end of this week, we need to make decisions about 79 years worth of accumulated stuff.  So, we're sifting through tens of thousands of items, conferring about what she wants to take to her new apartment, what will be passed on to her descendants, what will be sold at an upcoming estate sale, what will be given away, and what will be tossed.

My siblings and I are each only children. My brother was born in 1935. My sister, in 1942. I came along in late 1951. Child psychologists say that, if there are seven or more years between siblings, each child is basically raised as an only child. And we were. Each of us came of age in different decades. And each of us, naturally, has a different opinion about what to do with every item we run across. Sometimes we get into arguments. By this afternoon, mom had had enough of our bickering. "I want you children to quit arguing and settle down."

Between the three of us, we are 207 years old. But we straightened up.

Anyway, there is lots (and lots and lots) of stuff to go through. There's sentimental stuff like family photos. Fascinating stuff, including a book from 1855 entitled Cotton Is King And Other Pro-Slavery Arguments, which belonged to our great-grandfather. And, of course, stupid stuff like the Precious Moments figurine that has sat on the window shelf in mom's bathroom for as long as any of us can remember.

"Don't sell that," my sister announced when we began to pack up the bathroom. "I want to give it to my friend, Mary."

"She collects Precious Moments figurines?" I asked.

"No, she takes them out in her backyard, sits them on a fence post and shoots them with her shotgun. It's her way of handling stress."

"That's the most bizarre thing I ever heard," I said.

"She absolutely hates them," my sister replied. "Says they're so sickeningly sweet, they make her want to kill something every time she sees one. So, all her friends, whenever we run across them at garage sales, buy them and give them to her as gifts. If she has had a really bad day, sometimes she shoots two or three. Blasts them to smithereens."

And so, the one thing my brother, sister and I have agreed upon is this: The Precious Moments figurine doesn't have a happy future.

But we'll always remember it fondly.