Yup. I attended a gun show last weekend. I thought it'd be a good idea to check it out and see what it's all about. I haven't wished so bad that I had chosen differently since I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey. The only redeeming factor to the whole experience was spending time with my dad, my brother and my boy.
For those who have never been to a gun show, close your eyes and let me paint you a picture. (I know that! Of course you can't read a computer screen with your eyes closed.)
You walk into a large convention center. For those familiar with Salt Lake, picture the South Towne Expo Center. Buying tickets and passing the turnstiles is nothing special, but as you enter the sea of vendors you get an odd feeling that you accidentally drove to a swap meet. Nonetheless, you make your way to the large booth in the center of the room with an inviting yellow sign: Wholesale Ammunition. It's worth a shot, right? It's either that or set up camp outside your local outdoors store waiting for the next delivery truck, just hoping that they might have a couple boxes of high-speed, lead projectiles on board.
Hope quickly turns to despair as you realize that the throng of people surrounding this booth is second only to a Twilight book signing. No, there is no line. Just masses of people hoping to catch a glimpse of the table before they need to take a lunch break.
It didn't take long for the four of us to bag the ammo idea and see what else the gun show had to offer. Row by row we wove ourselves through the Expo Center, trying to justify the expense of admission. Three times Aaron dropped the helmet to his Darth Vader action figure. The third drop went unnoticed long enough to eliminate all hope of finding the tiny helmet. Aaron and I retraced our steps, looking under dangling table cloths and even across the aisle...no helmet. When we met up with Dad on the next row, he pulled me aside and opened his hand to reveal the missing item. He had spotted it on a display rack a couple yards ahead of where we were when Aaron noticed it was missing. Someone must have picked it up off the floor shortly after we started back-tracking. Needless to say, the helmet found a cozy spot in my pocket for the rest of our excursion.
All in all, the gun show was not at all what I expected. For one, I didn't see nearly as much camo as I thought there would be. However, to make up for it I did spot a man dressed as a Reb (Keith would have loved it) and another dressed as George Washington without the white wig. I could have sworn that Halloween was still six months away, but I might be mistaken.
