The Price of Our Passions (Or, What I Hate About My Hobbies)

I have two primary passions that consume my free time: the sport of Standup Paddle Boarding (SUP), and spending time with my Akitas. And, in case you were wondering, the two don’t go together very well except on the odd occasion when I have a stack of boards on top of my adventure rig and two giant bear-like faces sticking out of the passenger windows. In those moments, I look like an adventure-seeking badass.

Let’s talk about what I hate about SUP. For those of us who do it regularly and who take the sport seriously, good SUP boards, quality paddles, and much of the gear are expensive. A good, quality, high-performance SUP board will typically run you a minimum of $1,000. Like other performance sports like cycling, the more you pay, typically the better the equipment. A true mid-range SUP board that is worth owning will cost you between $2,000 and $3,000. Throw on a really good paddle (believe me, it’s worth it), and you can spend between $200 and $500. I haven’t even yet explained all the other gear and ancillary costs. I paddled 205 days last calendar year and use my equipment on a very regular basis, so it’s discouraging to realize that getting a board upgrade is going to take some planning and saving.

Now let’s talk about what I hate about Akitas. OK, that’s impossible. I can’t imagine hating anything about Akitas. But I do share the frustration that so many dedicated dog owners have when it comes to the price we pay to keep them healthy and happy. In the past year alone, my wife and I have spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $9,000 because of losing some old friends, acquiring new ones, and all of the medical expenses that came with them, including but not limited to a double TPLO knee surgery for one of our pups. Ouch. In the twenty-plus years, we’ve had Akitas, we’ve spent far into a six-figure number.

I mention the two previous examples to bring up one of the biggest crazes that have gripped the spare time and income of so many of my peers — middle-aged white men: Guns.

Guns are freaking cheap. Like, crazy cheap.

While my hobbies may not be the most expensive or luxurious, what I could afford on the gun front with the same amount of money is shocking. Perusing my local paper, I came across an insert from a sporting goods store advertising for the upcoming fall hunting season. Some of the items being promoted were both interesting and inexpensive. For a mere $300, or the price of a new paddle or visit to the veterinarian, I can purchase a Smith & Wesson M&P Bodyguard pistol (For protecting myself from rogue deer?). For only $400, also in the new paddle/vet visit range, I can buy a semi-auto shotgun — ones very similar to several of our country’s numerous public shootings. But why go that route when, according to this ad, I can purchase a Mossberg 500 Tactical Adjustable-Stock Pump Shotgun for only $380. Google an image of that weapon and tell me it’s for duck hunting. Last but not least, I can purchase a Springfield Saint 5.56 Rifle with a limited capacity magazine (wah!) for the low, low price of $650 — half of what I spent on my last Akita puppy and roughly what I paid for a much-used surf SUP board on my last vacation. Every weapon I just listed costs less than $1000 and three of them are quite clearly designed for tactical or combat purposes — unless your hunting season involves hostile alien beings or the undead, which, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.

We managed to reach a moment in this freedom-loving country of ours to tax the hell out of tobacco — something that was motivated by the sheer volume of people who died awful deaths from voluntarily and involuntarily smoking it. Yes, mental illness is a factor in mass shootings. Yes, social alienation is a problem. Yes, the United States is suffering from a serious masculine identity crisis that makes white men, in particular, feel powerless and in need of some kind of retribution. But wouldn’t it be at least somewhat helpful if the consistently used tools of domestic terrorism (yeah, I said it) were more difficult to acquire out of sheer economic leverage? I’m not at all suggesting guns be banned or that a citizen of the United States shouldn’t be able to purchase a gun. I just think they should be damned expensive so that the effort and resources to acquire a weapon are on par with someone who thinks they need to own one. An eighteen-year-old kid with a minimum wage job shouldn’t be able to afford a handgun with the earnings from his first paycheck. Let’s stop what is tantamount to the days when cigarettes were sold from vending machines at gas stations and see what happens. Nobody loses anything and at least we can say we tried something different for once.

There is no hope that a day will come when our hobbies don’t devour our expendable income or be the cause of frustration when other, more responsible things take away from our having expendable income for them. However, I do hope there comes a day in the not so distant future when we can all have hobbies that don’t keep us up at night wondering if our neighbors’ favorite pastime is going to get us or someone we love killed.