Don't Forget This - Mark Maynard

The woman at Schnabel’s, the world’s largest sporting goods store, waved a red plastic Frisbee at me. It was mine. I had won it by spinning the brightly painted plywood wheel of fortune that sat on an easel next to her black skirted table piled high with plastic water bottles, plastic bracelets and black embroidered Scnhabel’s polos, just like she was wearing (although I doubt most credit card applicants had the pert breasts to pull of the shirt like Darcy did). Darcy. Her nametag perched precariously above the shelf of her right breast like a climber trying desperately to stay attached to the side of Half Dome on a particularly difficult route.

I was pretty well tapped-out in the financial department and had come in to look at the handguns. That’s why I’d spent ten minutes at Darcy’s little table, to apply for a Schnabel’s credit card so I could run upstairs and afford a useable piece. I really didn’t need to spin the Wheel of Prizes, but if you’d seen Darcy in that polo, you would’ve lingered a bit at the table too. Even if you were in as big a hurry as I was.

Most people who buy handguns in places like this like to think that they need them for personal protection. Having the cold blackness of a Glock or the blued steel of a Smith and Wesson helps them sleep better at night. I needed a gun for a much less hypothetical situation and once I took my Frisbee from Darcy, I headed up the escalator that ascended slowly below the massive Ferris wheel that dominated the central atrium and headed up toward the massive firearms section of the store.

For some, browsing a gun section is much like a child wandering the aisles of a toy store. People were wandering up and down the glass display cases as if they were wandering through some sort of lethal jewelry store, leaving greasy fingerprints of desire above the more beautifully trimmed out weapons. Something about a pearl handled revolver or a smaller caliber “ladies” gun trimmed out in pink and leather made firearms into murderous impulse buys.

I knew what I was after.