It's always sobering when you realize you are a hapless twit and a high-ranking officer in the fail army, but they say laughter is the best medicine soooo ....
I recently transitioned from an inexpensive side-by-side double in 28 gauge to an even more inexpensive over-under in .410 in hopes that better stock fit would improve my scores at the skeet range.
The 28 was a plain double-trigger extractor gun; you have to manually remove the shells/hulls.
The .410 has automatic ejectors which pop the hulls out vigorously when you open the action. I had forgotten this about the new gun.
I make it a practice to keep decent snap caps in my break-open shotguns. These ( I use the solid aluminum ones from A-zoom) protect the firing pins when dry firing, simulate the heft and balance of live ammunition and serve to remind me that the gun is not loaded.
You can probably see it coming.
I forgot about the snap caps and the "robust" ejectors, popped open the .410 and caught both snap caps at high velocity in the upper lip. If I had been grinning I might have lost teeth. So I spent half an hour yesterday walking around the house with ice cubes in a towel held under my nose, muttering dark oaths.
Don't let it happen to you!

Suckers weigh abut 230 grains apiece -- .45 hardball ...

And I figured that big hair brush of yours would protect you with such things.
George

Shaved it off some time ago, George!
Fortunately, the swelling subsided and I can drink beer normally.

Yeah, it just isn't the same, drinking beer through a straw.

Perfect example of:

When the brain is dead. The body suffers!

In this age of reloading (rifles at least) and ecological responsibility, ejectors are not quite the boon we used to think. Pondoro didn't like them way back, either, as he found their pings alerted herd elephants.

I've found snapcaps ejected from my doubles have a tendency to finish up behind the couch.

Ahh, isn’t old age a wonderful thing!

When shooting, anywhere, using anything except semi auto, I always catch the empty and don’t let it fall.

Walter used to laugh at me catching empties and shooting running after wounded buffalo!

I tend to do likewise, Saeed, but before my one-and-only African safari I trained myself to let them fly