As you may or may not know, my wife is a former hoplophobe. Notice the word former. I am comfortable in saying she is no longer afraid of my guns.

I'm not saying she's raring to go to the range (shooting still makes her nervous) and she's still dead set against getting a CCW and carrying herself, but she no longer has that irrational fear of guns. I can understand the shooting part - it's loud, snaps your wrist, and there's that danger of getting injured. At my last range visit, an older lady was shooting with her husband and was shooting a tiny .380 and I assume she was holding it too high and the slide caught her hand. Let's just say the amount of blood was staggering.

Back to the Mrs. When I first started carrying, she would flinch when she went to hug me and her arm brushed the pistol. That no longer happens. She also now no longer questions why I would carry to a specific place, it is assumed I'll be armed no matter where we go.

But yesterday was the icing on the cake. We took our girls to the zoo and they have a new exhibit with African penguins. Just so you know, my favorite animals in all the world are penguins. I have a childish fascination with them. So the girls were against the wall and I was leaning over them, watching the feeding. I felt a tug on my shirt and looked up. It was the Mrs, completely focusing on the penguins like we were.

"What?" I asked.

"You're printing," she told me. She had pulled my shirt to prevent the pistol from sticking out, and then gone back to watching penguins.

I think I'm making progress!