AK47 stories: A fright at night, a chuckle in the daylight

Once when we were living in Peja, Kosova I got into a heated discussion with the imam of our local mosque.  We were on our way home one night and stopped by a kiosk near our house to buy something.  There was a mosque just across the street, and the imam,  spotting the name of our organization on the side of my car, came out to speak to me.  I kept trying to lower the temperature of the discussion, but hewas really angry.  "Go back to America!" he shouted at me.

When we got home I went to bed and Mary stayed up reading for a while in the living.  The power was on that night, and the living room had a big plate-glass window facing the street.  Suddenly there was a burst of automatic gunfire on the street outside.  Of course gunfire was pretty common in those days, but this time it was so close it shook the windows!  Honestly, it sounded as though it were inside!

Mary is not a fearful person by any stretch, but her first thought was, "Uh-oh, Mark really ticked that imam off this time!"  Not wanting to present too tempting a target, she crawled across the floor to the light switch, switched it off, then joined me in bed.  

We didn't hear any more shots that night, and the next day Mary casually brought it up in conversation with a neighbor.  "Did you hear some shooting last night?"

"Oh yeah", the neighbor responded.  "The kid down the street got circumcised, so they were just celebrating.