Right around this time every year, Travis and I have the same conversation. It involved trying to figure out what he would like for Christmas. This little verbal dance starts around Thanksgiving. I give little verbal prods and nudges as I tell him what I want. then, as we get closer and closer to Christmas, it turns into verbal assault on my end. Something along the lines of….”Hey assmunch, if you don’t give me any ideas, you will get underwear and socks!!”. And he always laughs at me.

About a week ago he starts telling me about the gun cleaning stuff he wants. I’m like, excuse me, I am NOT getting rifle cleaning crap for Christmas. Uh-huh, no way!! So then he starts talking to me about Mac notebook external hard drives and wireless mouse. And a glazed look washes across my face.

So last night, with no hope of finding anything for him other than clothes and legos. Shut up, he loves legos. Our whole basement is covered in Star Wars legos all put together and acting out specific movie scenes. Anyway, I broke down and we came up with a specific detailed list of gun stuff. Narrowed down by what I can find at each store.

I was armed, I was ready to wander the aisles that normally bore me to tears. I was going to sound educated and informed if I had to ask for help. This is what really happend….

I go into the first store.By the grace of God, I somehow manage to find thegun hunting section of the store on the secong level. I nervously go up and down each aisle looking at all the boxes of thngs that I have no idea about. I’m looking for somthing that says “cleaning” or “30 caliber”. I start to panic and must look like a deer caught in the headlights. Finally some sales person comes over and asks if he can help me. Oh, this poor sucker:) I start rambling at him and show him my list. he leads me to a different aisle. And for some reason, this store is out of everything I needed.

On to the second store. This store scares me. It is full of animal heads stuffed and mounted on the walls. No matter where I look, some dead head is following my every move. Anyway, this new sales associate who takes pity on me in so damn nice. he didn’t laugh at me at all. He lead me up and down aisles, showed me all kinds of differen things and helped me pick out things that were decent and within my budget. Actual things that were on my list. My list of things that I was sure Travis was making up just to laugh at the idea of me on some wild goose chase. Anyway, I am now the proud owner of gun cleaning equipment, a site stand and sand bags…yeah, I have no idea either:)

Did I mention I was doing all this shoping while it was snowing like a son of a bitch outside. Today is my last day off until Tuesday. And Travis is taking off that day so we can finish last minute shopping and wrap.

My lesson learned….I am never going into those hunting stores again. they scare me and I am WAAAYYY out of my element in them. Next year, I’m getting him a damn gift card and he go down those damn aisles all by himself, or even better, he can take Seth with him!!