Don't You Have This In "Please, God, Don't Shoot Me Orange?" The Wonder of Joe's

Many people go to Joe’s Sporting Goods because they want to shoot something; I went to avoid getting shot.  I’m visiting some friends in a cabin in Northern Wisconsin this weekend and my host warned me that it’s hunting season. I could spend days at Joe’s, wondering at all the ingenuity I’ve never previously needed: the waterproof gourmet chocolates, the fishing bear Christmas ornaments, the BuckBran, the $62 compass, the walls of filament lines and cases of strategic scents.  It made me want to hunt and fish just so I could buy this stuff.    

Comments

[D Curle]

Did you spot any bright orange camouflage clothes? What is up with that? Is it for people who want to be seen, or don't want to be seen? It's like a lead flotation device or a seat belt made of yarn.

http://www.galaxyarmynavy.com/item-5997.asp

[K]

I also don't get that. I may ask some of the hunters I know. Do they think the animals will go, "oh it's a bright orange thing creeping up on us, but those twigs reassure me"?

[minnesotaj]

Deer are red-green color blind. So: if you're one big block of color, you'll stand out as an alarming shape--if you're a variegated pattern of greys, not so much. Just hope you're not also missed by a hunter who shares the deer's red-green color-blindness.

As for gear fetish: it's midway on the pleasure list, but it's definitely a minor attraction of fly-fishing: somewhere after long walks on streams, the mustard light of a late August afternoon, the zing of the line as a trout takes it downstream & somewhere before getting up at 4:30 AM to drive down to SW Wisconsin and the taste of coffee at a rural Iowa greasy spoon.

[K]

That makes perfect sense. Al who's also color-blind, was briefly disturbed by my getup. And if I had any hand-eye coordination, I think I would totally dig fly fishing.

[Carolyn]

I don't understand--does that mean you looked like you were wearing all gray to Al? If so, why should that disturb him? My point is, maybe he isn't colorblind after all, because I suspect it would be unusual for you to wear blaze orange. Are all dogs colorblind? They must be, or how would you know Al is? Today at the vet, our cat attacked a statue of a cat. It wasn't even all that realistic.

Anyway, good luck out in the cabin. Oh, and on a related note, I understand from my Wisconsin relatives that Miller beer is sold in blaze orange cans this fall.

[K]

Carolyn,

Albert is inscrutable. I'm beginning to suspect that he understands what "perambulation" means.

[Joseph]

Maybe he's been playing that vocab game that Sari was emailing around.

[K]

Just as long as he doesn't start writing his memoirs.

BTW, the abovementioned site:http://www.freerice.com/

I got "aphotic" right then tripped up on "salutary."

[keith]

I think next to pink, blaze orange is my next favorite color.

[K]

There is something awfully familiar about it: http://www.kevinfenton.com (turn your speaker down if you don't like clatter--I promise to put a 'skip into' the next time I revise this.)