On Shopping

Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like. -- Will Rogers

I hate shopping. Correction loathe shopping. I will put off until the very last possible minute any shopping activity. This attitude, of course, has it's benefits. You save money, time, space and the planet's limited resources. But, having a pathological aversion to shopping can also have its detractions, particularly when it comes to outdoor gear. You can end up, like me, with just about everything you own in a serious state of disrepair, dilapidation and decrepitude.

Skiing up Mount Woodbury this past Sunday, with a backpack that has lost any semblance of being waterproof and has, in fact, taken on the characteristics of a sponge, with a big hole ripped in the bottom, and the shoulder straps frayed so much that the padding is hanging out, using a pair of beaten up ski poles - one of which is bent into a U shape - and neither of which adjust anymore so that they are chronically too short and I am bent over like the hunchback of Notre Dame; and wearing a pair of boots the liners of which have holes worn in them and have always been too small, attached to a pair of skis that are delaminating so badly that the wood core is soaking up water constantly, and finally, drinking out of a thermos, the lining of which is cracked so that it leaks constantly adding more liquid to the interior of my backpack and augmenting that which diffuses by osmosis through the pack itself from the atmosphere, I began to think that too much of anything is not a good thing.

But that doesn't mean I'm in any hurry to go shopping.

 Beaten up foot from wearing worn out ski boots on the Misty Icefields Traverse