Horse Trading

A number of years ago, the first of my 'virtual' sons offered me a shotgun for sale.  I knew he was hard up for cash (his wife embezzled a significant amount of money and in exchange for returning the money - she would not go to jail!) so I bought it sight unseen.

About the tenth time I took it out to fondle it, I noticed that the stock was chipped around the top of the receiver and a large flake of wood would one day split off along one side.  Really poor stock craftsmanship and by Weatherby no less!  What really irritated me was that as I was examining the flake, I noticed that the beautiful walnut burl stock was actually some type of polymer coating over a garbage grade of wood.  And, from Weatherby no less!  This shotgun was build in 1977!  Not some new piece of garbage being cranked out these days!

I just wrote this down to: inspect before you buy.  At the time, I would given him a similar amount with no question of ever being repaid.  He is (and still is) family.  But, I always wondered if he knew about that stock flaw or not.....

So, when cousin offered this idea of ganging together to sell anything we no longer wanted, that was the first piece I grabbed to get rid of and priced it according to its stock condition.

As the end of Saturday at the show was rolling around, a young man walked up and asked if I would trade that Weatherby for an older Remington 870.  I looked the gun over, asked him twice if he really wanted to trade, which he did, so I did it.  The Remington is worth about a third of the Weatherby, but you know, I liked the guy and his young wife.  I could see in his eyes someone I used to see in the mirror decades ago......

So, I kept the Remington available, just in case he came back and was unhappy with the trade.

But, now weirdness sets in.

About lunchtime on Sunday, someone was standing in front of the table and I was so exhausted it took me probably 90 seconds to realize that virtual son number one was stand there in front of me!  I could hardly jump over the table to greet him, but I would of, if I could of!  But, what the heck was he doing here - and at the gun show no less?

Seems he has followed in my footsteps of utter klutziness and managed to break his left arm!  Yeah, he explained how he had been playing hockey last week and took a stick to his forearm, snapping the outer bone.  The doctors all recommended that if he could get the money to come here for surgery immediately (versus waiting months back home!) !  (Are you listening you idiot socialist health care demanders!?!?!?!)

So, as I write this he is in a hospital in Seattle having the bone rebuilt, in about thirty minutes.  Hopefully, this will work well for him, he was in a great deal of pain Sunday.

But, even for how bizarre this is, it was not the weirdest of the weekend yet!