Why I Am Spending $179.97 On A New Career

I am by nature a catalog reader. I can spend endless hours perusing things I will never purchase just for the sake of "looking things over" for when I do decide to buy something. Be it a new pair of shoes, a sweater, or reproduction of a Vietnamese tomahawk, I have a fair idea of my options and prices. One of the catalogs I get comes from an outfit called the Sportsman's Guide and it is chock full of stuff you wouldn't find most anywhere else.

For example, in my most recent edition of the military surplus catalog, I find on page eleven a gently used German military police riot set, complete with jacket, pants, and flak vest, all with polmer shields that slid neatly into shin, elbow, shoulder, neck and groin pockets. Everything is rubberized and the gauntlets have metal reinforcements. As far as this sort of thing goes, it's a nice set if you are looking for that sort of thing.

Then I got to wondering, who would need this sort of thing? I had a cup of coffee and a smoke and I thought it over. In my mind, there was only one sort of person who would want such a thing. An entrepenuer. Someone who courted danger in the vain hopes of making a buck. In short, a rotten fruit saleman.

A guy who would travel to any large gathering of people and set up a small stand at the fringes of the crowd. He would be clad in riot gear and have bushel baskets of rotten fruit, scythes, pitchforks, and torches. He would be the one guy who would be prepared in case a mob broke out. Political rallies of any kind would be his bread and butter.

Of course everything he sold would come with a signed disclaimer absolving him of any blame so that no lawyer had to have his ass, so to speak.

Doc