Flavored Water

“I like it when there are winners, but I especially like it when there are losers…”.

-Arnold Schwarzenegger on the nature of competition and pot luck dinners.

I love new gear – I really do, but the simple act of walking into a smallish, mom-and-pop kind of boutique-y outfitter makes me feel like I just got fitted for “The Blue Dress” by a gang of commission-happy employees wanting to sell me their newest Gore-Tex rain shell.  I want to scream: “You just sold me one last week, dammit!”

It’s as if the money in our pockets gets blown out of our hands by gentle, loving, alpine winds.  Everything seems to cost at least $100 dollars so from now on, lets call every g-note that leaves our hands one “Standard Unit of Gear Acquisition”, or SUGA.

Gimme some SUGA…  Want that new SteriPen water purification light?  Yes, that will be one SUGA please.  Oh, and that that new Granite Gear Nimbus Meridian pack- yeah, that will go ahead and put you pack two and a half SUGAs, thank you very much. 

Once, while shopping for a few last minute items in a local small boutique-y kind of “adventure outfitters” store,  I was chastised for trying to check out with less than one SUGA of merchandise.  “IS THAT ALL YOU’RE BUYING?”  demanded the clerk manning the counter.   It made me laugh.  I suggested to her that maybe if the cute little carabiner LED lights next to the register weren’t FIFTEEN BUCKS, I might, you know, impulse buy one… 

     Go fish.  I’m takin’ my SUGA elsewhere.