A Fine and Pleasant Misery by Patrick F. McManus

Author:Patrick F. McManus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2012-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

The Outfit

YEARS AGO the Old Wilderness Outfitter started sending me his catalog of surplus outdoor gear: slightly battered canoes, scruffy rucksacks, dulled trail axes, tarnished cook kits, saggy tents, limp snowshoes, and the like. I spent many a fine winter hour thumbing through his catalog. Indeed, such was my enjoyment that occasionally I would lose control of my faculties and actually order some of the stuff. One surplus wilderness tent arrived with authentic wilderness dirt still on the floor, not to mention a few pine needles, a fir cone, a sprinkling of fish scales, and a really nice selection of squashed insects. The Old Wilderness Outfitter never charged for any of these extras, and in numerous other ways revealed himself to be a man of generosity and all-round good character. He put out a fine catalog, too.

The catalog arrived each winter with the same regularity as the snow, and at about the same time. Then it stopped coming. I thought maybe the Old Wilderness Outfitter had died, or was peeved at me because I had sent a letter telling him I would just as soon furnish my own fish scales and squashed insects, and there was no need to include them with my orders. I hadn’t intended to offend him though, and if sending the extras meant that much to him it was all right with me.

A few days ago, I was surprised to find in the mail a new catalog from the Old Wilderness Outfitter. Happily, I licked my thumb and started flipping through the pages. I was flabbergasted. There wasn’t a single scruffy rucksack in the thing, let alone a slightly battered canoe. The Old Wilderness Outfitter had filled up his catalog with glossy, color pictures of beautiful people.

Glancing at the prices, I thought at first the beautiful people themselves must be for sale. There was one blonde lady who looked well worth the seventy-five dollars asked, and I would have been interested, too, if I didn’t already have one of my own worth almost twice that amount.

Then I determined the prices were for the clothes the beautiful people were wearing! The seventy-five dollars wasn’t the price of the blonde lady but what she had on, something described as “a shooting outfit.” (I can tell you with absolute certainty that if that lady ever shot anything in her life it was a sultry look across a crowded room.) The men were almost as beautiful as the women, and dressed in a month’s wages plus overtime. Their haircuts alone probably cost more than my shooting outfit, if you don’t count my lucky sweatshirt with the faded Snoopy on it.

Most of the clothes were trimmed in leather made from the hides of Spanish cows, which was appropriate, I thought, because most of the catalog copy was American bull.

After about ten minutes of studying the catalog, I could see what had happened. Some unemployed high-fashion clothes designers had got to the Old Wilderness Outfitter and persuaded him to chuck his rucksacks and the like and replace them with fancy clothes.

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