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Hi all,

My wife and I went to a coffee shop the other night to hear a friend sing for open mic night. I had my Bersa Thunder .380 IWB at 2:00 under a Hawaiian shirt and no one was the wiser (except my wife). I'm not normally a hugger but while we were all standing around after the concert I gave our young friend hug and told her what a great job she did. I made sure it was a one-armed shoulder hug on my non gun side. Since we’re not close friends, plus I know how she was raised, I fully expected her to respond in kind with her arm around my shoulder. It never occurred to me that she would put her arm around my mid-section. And I didn’t realize I was skinny enough for her hand to wrap around as far as it did. But sure enough, her fingers landed right on the grip of my .380.

Of course she didn’t know what it was and pulled away immediately. I instantly reacted as well, and my becoming uncomfortable and embarrassed freaked her out and made her even more uncomfortable and embarrassed than I was. We stood there stammering as if we’d both done something wrong and my wife started laughing, which confused our friend even more. Finally after several awkward seconds (which seemed like hours) I decided I owed her an explanation. Not wanting to say out loud “it’s a gun”, I discretely showed her my recently acquired CHL and we all had a good laugh. We have a couple of mutual friends who carry, so I knew she would be OK with it after she understood what was going on.

Even though we laughed about it I’ll admit the whole thing rattled me so bad I could hardly drive home - I couldn't believe I let it happen. I will DEFINITELY re-think my hugging strategy in the future!

James