**** Chapter Twenty-Three – A day at the Gun Show ****

We awoke at first light; I was quickly reverting to my farm boy roots. Michelle and I were the first up and out in the world; after a quick morning snuggle we showered and walked down to start the chores. Matilda had coffee ready as we came back from finishing with the horses. The emotional flush of our evening together was still upon us and I invited her to accompany me to the gun show at the fair ground that I had planned to attend that day. She enthusiastically agreed.

She needed to tend her horses and freshen up at home so we arranged to meet near the show and only worry about parking my truck in the actual parking area.

My infatuation was confirmed I as fussed about like a teenager getting ready to go on his first date; I even stopped to clean the truck on my way into to the city to meet her. We met up at a café near the show, I was waiting for her in a booth with coffee for both of us. She walked through the door of the café looking simply amazing to my besotted mind; she gave me a sweet, quick kiss and we talked about my goals for the day while we drank our coffee.

The gun show was predictably a mess, actually worse than most trade shows I’d ever attended. The vendors were placed by bid and that was basically the only order to the layout. Food and strong drink were offered so lunch wouldn’t be a problem, which was good news – I was actually in the mood for a little bit of “county fair” food. Still, it was a noisy mess.

We set off to find my primary objectives, me holding her hand and leading her through the mass of people ranging from a farmer with manure on his boots to the guy in the decent business suit; we even had a very large contingent of folks walking around dressed up in battle-gear like they were heading into a firefight with the Taliban immediately after lunch.

I had four primary objectives for this shopping trip, firstly I wanted a good pump action 12-gauge for hunting. As with everything else I needed all the associated items including ammo, cleaning kit and sling. After that I wanted the other tools I was familiar with and they were pretty simple and all available under Oklahoma law. I intended to purchase a M16A2 replica, a M1911A1, the shotgun and a 30.06 hunting rifle.

I wasn’t and still am not a big gun guy, generally I consider them in the same context I consider my axes and chainsaws; I was here to purchase tools in my mind. I wanted my M16A2 and my M1911 to be basically new standard issue and with any luck they would simply live in my gun safe forever. My shotgun and hunting rifle should be works of art, I could afford it and that’s the way I preferred it.

Our initial focus was on the M1911, finding a high-quality reproduction took a little time but I managed to find an example the weapon I had carried for so many years. The M16A2 took a little longer, everyone wanted to upsell me and make me battle ready. I ended up buying directly from Colt and I actually made my first splurge of the day and purchased a match grade rifle from them as well, it was a magnificent piece and I just decided to treat myself.

So far so good, so we decided to have lunch. The infatuated love birds that we were at that moment we got a little carried away, a few too many drinks and not enough actual lunch were consumed at that noon break. It was fun, and by the time we returned to the buying floor we were tipsy and impulsive.

We returned to shopping.

Have you ever gone drunken Christmas shopping? That’s when you have a few too many drinks and buy things for people you would never buy and you have a great time doing it. Then when you get home you look at everything and ask yourself, “What the hell was I thinking”.

Well, we went drunken gun shopping. It started with the shotguns; I wanted a simple pump action 12 gauge for bird hunting. Sadly, most of the offerings were militarized or camouflaged and I wanted a nice wood stock suitable for display as well as practical for use. Camouflaging a long gun seems stupid to me, the net effect being to disguise it as a leafy branch instead of a stick of wood.

My search led me to a dealer in the back corner of the floor who specialized in custom made and collectable weapons. I bought a beautiful handmade pump-action shotgun and then immediately fell in love with an antique side-by-side double they had in a case. I inquired about the gun and was told that the original was display only but they had handmade replicas available; they had one on hand for marketing purposes. I bought it.

Meanwhile Michelle had wandered away and found some cute little feminine .22’s, I was in drunken impulse mode by that point and bought her one, then bought another to teach the girls how to shoot with. From there things just got out of hand, I bought everything I had ever desired during my youthful years; including a brace of musket pistols like the pirates used in the movies.

Everything I bought was displayable quality and my excuse was that I planned to use them to decorate my new ranch home; Michelle giggled and played along with my story.

We had a lot of fun and I spent what felt like a lot of money, but in truth was it was nothing compared to the funds I had available.

We were starting to sober up by the time I closed the deal on my replica musket (with all the accompanying necessities) and it was time to leave before I bought a tank or something. I had arranged to pick up everything at the loading dock and we almost ran for my truck. I had two full shopping bags of simply paperwork and receipts.

I started to get a grasp on the extent of my spending when they started loading my truck, it was a lot of boxes. Michelle was looking stricken as she saw the amount of crap we’d purchased, I kissed her and told her it’d be OK. I dropped her at her truck so she could run home and do the chores, she promised to be over later to help deal with the mess we had made.

****

I went back to the camp and prepared to deal with the mess, my gun safe just couldn’t handle the amount had purchased and buying the ammo and gunpowder had been just plain stupid. It had seemed smart at the time just like the reloader did, but I really should have had them shipped to the ranch.

I shook it off, Michelle would be there soon so I did my chores and updated the girls; when they saw my purchases they both simply looked at me like I was an idiot. I had been an idiot that day.

Sonya went through and organized the piles of paperwork associated with my purchases, those we stowed in the lock box. While she worked on that, I located the M16, the M1911, my shotgun, and my 30.06. These all belonged in the gun safe; I added some ammo in with them and locked them up. I had a layover scheduled for us in southern Nebraska, I’d break them out and clean them there. I was simply staring at the rest of the pile when Michelle pulled up.

I decided it was too much to go through all of this stuff that night, as I needed to be on the road the next day and I wanted to spend some more time with Michelle. We simply organized it all and stored it in the storage room, which took up all of the remaining available shelf space. I’d deal with it all when I reached the ranch next week.

Matilda had prepared a simple dinner and we all sat down to eat. Dinner finished, Michelle and I went out for a sunset ride; it was a quiet and simple evening. After our ride while we were currying down Abigail and Mila, I asked Michelle if she wanted to join me for a few days during my layover in Nebraska. She gave it some thought and decided she could have her niece over to babysit her livestock so we had a date.

Michelle stayed over again that night.