Shopping After Dark

I do most of my shopping in a two- to three-week period in December — not a perfect system, but it works. In order to buy lots of gifts in such a short time, however, I've had to head out after dinner — when I'd typically be curling up with a book or a movie — onto the cold, dark highways of suburbia, pulling in and out of massive parking lots, threading my way past holiday displays and shelves of sweaters in search of the right gift for each person on the list.

The other night, looking in vain for help in a large sporting goods store (what is a lure? and how do you tell one from the other?) I found myself in the one section of the establishment that was bustling, the one section where you could find clerks. That would be the gun department.

Don't think I've ever seen so many guns in one place before. There were camo models and long sleek menacing ones and short, stubby almost cute ones. People were milling around cases, speaking animatedly to staff, pawing through boxes of ammunition.

I told myself that guns must be a big seller around the holidays, that these guns are for hunters. Put out of my mind the frightening alternatives.

Still, it was hard to forget that in this entire cavernous store the only place where there was life and activity and conversation, the only place that was lively ... was where the guns were sold.