Several times now, somebody expressed surprise at learning that I was an NFL football fan. They usually say something like,"You don't seem the type," whatever that means.
The same people would probably be surprised that I was excited to learn that Grand Junction CO had a Cabela's store. Soon I was there, poring over the latest and greatest multi-tools and LED flashlights. It's odd that, with so many items in such a gigantic store, it's only these two items that interest me. Besides, I already have a high-end Leatherman multi-tool and never bring it along, because of its weight.
Imagine how easy it would be to criticize female shoppers fawning and coo-ing over some expensive and useless trinket just because it was kyooooooot! The sidewalks of Ouray CO are full of such shoppers.
But one Sunday morning Coffee Girl and I went on a nice hike on that remarkable network of trails than emanates from the town of Ouray. Afterwards I finally found a restaurant that offered good televisions to watch the Sunday afternoon NFL games. What bliss! Sitting there, utterly pleased with the universe, it occurred to me that perhaps I had been too harsh on the bourgeois shopping mavens. After all, they have the DNA of thousands of generations of successful Gatherers in their bodies, just as I had the DNA of Hunters and Warriors in mine.
What is a hike but an exercise in mock hunting? After it, my "hunt" had continued on to a restaurant that would actually let me watch the football game. And what are sports but mock war? Perhaps I was feeling happy because I was acting in a way consistent with the evolution of the human animal. Why then doesn't the female Gatherer/shopper have the same right?
Which brings us back to shopping at Cabela's. Hunting and fishing are dying sports in an increasingly urbanized, uni-sex, environmentalist America. I can only imagine how expensive and restrictive it is to hunt these days, with the Wildlife agencies full of environmental science graduates. Hunting and fishing are sports that boys learn from their fathers, which goes against the entire ethos of feminized, politically-correct America.
Why then should there be huge mega-stores built around a hunting and fishing theme? Perhaps Cabela's thinks that the 'best defense is a good offense?' Or it could be something more anthropologically significant.
Now that fathers don't even live in the same household as their sons, and work in climate-controlled cubicles instead of ranches, farms, or factories, maybe they have a need for things like big powerful pickup trucks to drive to the cubicle. Perhaps they need even more consolation for their lost masculinity, and Cabela's offers it: the uni-sex role of being a Gatherer (i.e., a shopper), all under the facade of a traditional male image.
If this explanation is correct, there is a sort of poetic justice in it. Now that women are poaching on the traditional male role of raping, burning, and pillaging in the Imperial legions, it's only fair that men should become Gatherer/shoppers.
The same people would probably be surprised that I was excited to learn that Grand Junction CO had a Cabela's store. Soon I was there, poring over the latest and greatest multi-tools and LED flashlights. It's odd that, with so many items in such a gigantic store, it's only these two items that interest me. Besides, I already have a high-end Leatherman multi-tool and never bring it along, because of its weight.
Imagine how easy it would be to criticize female shoppers fawning and coo-ing over some expensive and useless trinket just because it was kyooooooot! The sidewalks of Ouray CO are full of such shoppers.
But one Sunday morning Coffee Girl and I went on a nice hike on that remarkable network of trails than emanates from the town of Ouray. Afterwards I finally found a restaurant that offered good televisions to watch the Sunday afternoon NFL games. What bliss! Sitting there, utterly pleased with the universe, it occurred to me that perhaps I had been too harsh on the bourgeois shopping mavens. After all, they have the DNA of thousands of generations of successful Gatherers in their bodies, just as I had the DNA of Hunters and Warriors in mine.
What is a hike but an exercise in mock hunting? After it, my "hunt" had continued on to a restaurant that would actually let me watch the football game. And what are sports but mock war? Perhaps I was feeling happy because I was acting in a way consistent with the evolution of the human animal. Why then doesn't the female Gatherer/shopper have the same right?
Which brings us back to shopping at Cabela's. Hunting and fishing are dying sports in an increasingly urbanized, uni-sex, environmentalist America. I can only imagine how expensive and restrictive it is to hunt these days, with the Wildlife agencies full of environmental science graduates. Hunting and fishing are sports that boys learn from their fathers, which goes against the entire ethos of feminized, politically-correct America.
Why then should there be huge mega-stores built around a hunting and fishing theme? Perhaps Cabela's thinks that the 'best defense is a good offense?' Or it could be something more anthropologically significant.
Now that fathers don't even live in the same household as their sons, and work in climate-controlled cubicles instead of ranches, farms, or factories, maybe they have a need for things like big powerful pickup trucks to drive to the cubicle. Perhaps they need even more consolation for their lost masculinity, and Cabela's offers it: the uni-sex role of being a Gatherer (i.e., a shopper), all under the facade of a traditional male image.
If this explanation is correct, there is a sort of poetic justice in it. Now that women are poaching on the traditional male role of raping, burning, and pillaging in the Imperial legions, it's only fair that men should become Gatherer/shoppers.
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