Long Overdue W'kend

I guess it's about time I post the long overdue weekend report. My feeble attempt at getting started ended with the post about the Chevy pickup truck that almost ran us off the road last Monday, the day of our living history event, and I haven't been able to pick the thread back up and get something useful on paper or, as the case may be, on virtual paper.

In good news, I am almost done reading Good-bye to All That by Robert Graves. It was, surprisingly, a very good read except for the name-dropping which I find annoying, and the fact that he rambles off on tangents every so often, which contributes little to the story. However, as I am definitely guilty of tanget-travel myself, I don't have much room to talk. ("Ah", says the voice, "but everyone can be a critic. Even the hypocritical.")

Anyway, we had a nice long weekend.

On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we were the proud owners of a table at the Old Dominion Gun Show held at the Dale City VFW, which is a nice, small show with a reasonable turn-out. I originally reserved one 8-foot table, but once we started bringing things in and setting up, we were offered a second table, free of charge, since the vendor turn-out had been pretty low. Once I was done setting up across two tables, the guy-in-charge said I could just use the table at the every end of the row as well, and so I ended up with three tables for the price of one.

Most of what we sold was leftovers, meaning, all sorts of stuff that has little use in current re-enactment impressions and regular life. We had all sorts of different and interesting things on and under our table: camouflage netting, books, uniform items, the bin of odds-and-ends, and assorted webgear. I also sold two digital cameras, my Sony W50 and Trueman's old Nikon CoolPix. I got $90 for the Sony and $20 for the Nikon, which made me very happy. Beyond that, our sales consisted of quite a few items in the $1 to $10 range, but we made out well overall.

The show was actually pretty fun. It was small enough to be fun, and big enough to be profitable. The people were pretty nice, although I still have a hard time with the fact that when you're a girl at a gun show, either the guys don't take anything you're saying seriously (because, you know, girls don't know anything about guns or militaria), or they spend the entire conversation staring at your boobies.

One FBI agent I was talking to for quite some time about all sorts of things almost asked me out ... well, until I said the word husband in the same sentence. He was also more interested in the boobies than the intellect and put his foot squarely in his mouth, too.

Him: "I think I'll get this T-shirt for my buddy, but I'm not sure it'll fit. It doesn't have a size label." (It had no label.) Me: "It fit me just fine, and I'm kind of big up top. (Makes vague gesture at chest.) Not that you've noticed." (You've been staring at them for the last hour. Obviously, you've noticed.) Him: (Embarrassed) "I wasn't. I was actually looking at your pretty blue eyes." Me: They're green. (Yeah, right, you were looking at my eyes....)

We even got to bring Abby and she certainly loved that. We put her sheepskin-lined basket behind the table and she just chilled in it all day, watching the people go by. Every so often, a person would catch sight of her and ask if they could come and pet, and Abby would flop over, expose her belly, and just be her goofy self. She liked most of the people who came to pet her, with the possible exception of two young boys who were as annoying as they were loud, but who both absolutely adored her and wanted nothing more than play with the doggy!

Speaking of annoying, the show was actually hounded by a team of reporters who claimed to be doing a story on gun shows that would air on the BBC. I'm assuming they meant BBC radio, since they tape-recorded and took still pictures, instead of filming. They were more than a little suspect, though, and I bet it's either going to be a highly slanted piece on the BBC, or it's going to be a nasty little expose on Al-Jezeera.

Both the reporters, a man and a woman, were speaking to each other in Farsi. They walked around the gun show with their recorder on, taping peoples' conversations as they passed by. The guy was "taking notes" using a head-set and a small hand-held recorder, while the female was taking notes by hand, and taking pictures of people who were checking out guns. She also did some interviews with people who would talk with her. She interviewed the two boys who were petting Abby and their dad and asked some very leading questions.

"Why did you come to the gun show," she asked the younger boy.
"Because my dad likes guns."
"How does that make you feel? Does your dad have guns in the house? How do you feel about having guns in the house? Does it make you feel afraid? Do you know where your dad keeps his guns? Do you know how to use them?"

If I had been dad, I would have stopped the Interview after a couple of these questions, but they're not my kids, so it's not really my problem. They didn't ask me for an interview, which is just as well, because I probably would have told them to go screw themselves. They did ask if they could take a photo of Abby with the two little boys, which I did not have a problem with.

I later heard that the female reporter had been trying to buy a gun at the show, so I do wonder about their motives. I guess if she'd been able to buy one, we'd all hear about this magical "gun show loophole" that allows foreign terrorists to buy guns at US gun shows. However, the dealers wouldn't let her buy, anyway, since they all require 2 forms of ID and the whole shpiel.

People in general were reasonably impressed with Abby's good behavior. We got a lot of, "How do you get her to be so calm?" and "I could never bring my dog here, he would be barking at everyone." And, of course, we got a lot of, "Awww, she's so cute!", especially when I had her up in my lap and she was resting her head on the edge of the table, so obviously relaxed and completely unphased by all that was going on around her. When I had her walking out to the car with me while loading up all that was left, lots of people just goggled at her heeling next to me without a leash, being the good girl that she is.

What did not get sold at the show went into one of two bins: the bin of things that was going to the thrift store, and the bin of things we were going to trade, barter, and sell at the militaria shop the next Tuesday. We dropped the thrift store bin off at the local Value Village on the way home on Sunday.