My Hubby is a man of many passions. His interests are vast and varied, some, total extremes from each other. But the one common link in his passions is it gives him a chance to shop. He is a boy shopaholic. Now, he's not a shopaholic when it comes to shopping for clothes or shoes. He finds that more painful than the thought of a vasectomy. He groans and wails when that kind of shopping is mentioned. No. His shopping is on a completely different level. I'll give you some examples.
He's a big lover of everything Mac. This is wonderful and annoying, depending on the circumstance.

I love that laptop. I love that laptop more than wine and that, friends, is a LOT of love.

And yes, he stood in line for 12 hours when the original Iphone was launched. Actually . . . he didn't stand in line for 12 hours, Victoria and I stood in line for the first 7 hours until he could join us.
I had no intention of doing such a moronic thing. I mean, it wasn't Springsteen tickets!
When he called me in the early morning on the day of the IPhone launch saying, "I'm hung up with a client and I'm not going to be able to make it to the launch until later in the day and I just know it'll be too late. I'll have to," The brokenhearted sob traveled through the phone lines. "Get on the WAITING LIST!" The crushing sadness was too much for me to bear.
So I dropped what I was doing, grabbed Victoria who's always up for a good time, packed up our chairs and camped in front of the AT&T store. We made some friends who also worship at the altar of Steve Jobs, took turns getting pedicures at the nail salon behind our little camp, played charades with the other Apple geeks and shared pizza with our new Apple friends. The Hubby met us there after work. He told us we could take off, but by that time we had too many friends and Victoria was winning at charades. We were way too invested.
He's so much of a Mac guy the last time we went to the Apple store in our mall, the hipster sales clerk greeted him with a hug and a, "Hey, what's up, Man. Where you been?"
And my Hubby's all, "I've been in California for the last two weeks. But don't you worry, I went to the Apple store there 3 times."
This is the annoying part of the Mac hobby because everytime we were within a few miles of the store his divining rod of a body would lead him there and he'd be like, "I just need to see this one thing."  And hours later we'd still be heavily ensconced in some snoozefest technology conversation with the Mac Dude with plugs in his ears about gigabytes and hammer times and mambly schamblies. Please, how deep does your techie knowledge have to go!  Just turn on the computer and have at it like normal people.
I told him he should become the Mac fan club president.
He's also a wine collector. Wine is probably one of his most ardent passions. His ultimate dream would be to live in The Motherland, Sonoma, California and make wine. I find nothing annoying about wine and his shopping addiction to it. Wine is my Jesus Juice.

He's also a big foodie. This has its bad and good. The good—his food is fabulous. Not only is his food, scrumdilicious, he's also big on presentation.

I knew nothing about presentation when I married him. The first time I attempted dinner and said, like my mother before me, "Yo, dinner's in the pot on the stove. Have at it." He had a Martha Stewart conniption fit.
He was all, "You have to put the food on serving dishes and put the flavored salt in little bowls. (Like most men, he collects salt.) And you have to use real plates, not this paper crap."
And since I grew up in a home where every Friday was Fish Stick Friday with a cookie sheet full of those frozen treats, I'm going, "You're f*#*ing with me, right?" While he's rolling his eyes, Martha style, proclaiming, "It's all in the PRESENTATION!"
This means we spend a ton of time in William Sonoma and other kitchen places, searching endlessly for presentation. I don't like that part of his foodie personality. I especially don't like the 150 dishes and bowls he uses at every meal because I don't care how pretty it makes the food look, it's just gonna get in ma belly. I'm the one who has to wash all the presentation.

And then there was the time he discovered this:





For those of you not familiar with The Big Green Egg, it's a giant ceramic, smoker and grill, in avocado green, that cooks up some fine and dandy meats, I will admit. He bought an egg and proceeded to fall in love with it.
One night, right after he'd bought it, we were watching TV and he was on his Apple laptop plugging away at a fast and furious rate.   I asked him what he was doing. He got rather sheepish, because he knew what was coming, but he couldn't hold back a second longer. He said, "I found this Green Egg forum where everybody chats about their Green Eggs."
And I said, "No, you are NOT in a chat room chatting up other Big Green Egg freaks. I am telling everybody we know."
He got rather defensive and excited all at the same time and said, " I don't care who you tell! Real Big Green Egg owners understand their need to talk about their eggs. And they have an annual Eggtoberfest where you can go and meet other Eggheads and bring your Egg and all cook together! We're going!"
I looked at him as he typed away furiously and said, "You can go hang with the other Eggheads. I'm not going to an Egg convention....well, unless AIG is putting it on!"

When we moved out to the sticks, he decided he didn't want to pay the small fortune it would take to have someone mow our forest. He was going to do it, himself, in his shopping style. He chose as his weapon against growing grass, a mowing machine called a Dixie Chopper.

Like the Big Green Egg, this is also something only men know about. When he came home and announced he purchased this mowing Rolls Royce, the girls and I looked at him blankly.
He was shocked at our lawn mower ignorance. He was shocked that we didn't know the Chopper had a zero turning radius, (uh, what?), and that it was the world's fastest mower. Nor did we share his enthusiasm for the lawn mower.
The Chopper people made a big deal over this mower, bringing it to our house on its own flat-bed trailer. My Hubby stood dancing in excitement at the door waiting for its arrival. When it came, he invited the Dixie Chopper salesman in for a cup of coffee. 
Now, here's the thing, the Dude was a very nice man, very nice. But, there was this one issue.   He had no hands.  They'd been amputated in a terrible accident several years back. And even though he was very nice and personable, I just kept thinking to myself, is this the best representative for a lawn mowing company? Wouldn't you be thinking when he was trying to sell it to you, "Yeah, I'm not going anywhere near one of those chopping machines!"
The Dixie Chopper salesman was also there to give The Hubby his orientation and tutoring seminar.  That's right, tutoring seminar. For a lawn mower. My Hubby was already heading out the door, ready to take down some grass before the man had time to take a sip of his coffee. The no-handed salesman turned to me and said, "Are you coming for the seminar?"
I could hear My Hubby's laughter trailing behind him, as he ran outside to greet his new chopper. I said to the Chopper man, "Oh, no thanks. I don't do lawns."
And he said, "You sure? It's pretty addictive. My Momma loved it so much, she insisted on mowing the lawn herself every week. She said it was her therapy, her time to be with the Lord."
Now, I love the Lord. I do. But, I do not feel the need to be with him while sitting on a lawn mower getting sweaty and having bugs flapping around my face. I think the Lord will listen to me while I am in the bubble bath just as well.
It's a sight to see when my Hubby on his lawn mower. It's super fast and when he whizzes by us as we sit in our air conditioning, it's good for a laugh. He looks like a Speedy Gonzales lawn mowing man cartoon.
And then there's his other passion. He loves to shoot guns.
Now before anyone gets their drawers all knotty, let me say, he never, ever shoots living things of any kind. He's not that kind of guy. He only shoots mechanical targets and clay pigeons, nothing else. He's also very responsible and very safe with his weapons. He is the son of a Marine. He learned to respect guns long ago.
But just like his other passions, he constantly adds to this one, culling the catalogs and internet for anything that strikes his fancy.
This came in the mail the other day.

I don't bother opening the packages, that come to our door on a daily basis. He's the shopaholic, not me. Our UPS man knows us well because of his shopping addictions. He knows the girls, knows O-Dawg's getting ready to go off to college, knows the dog's favorite scratching spots, knows where to put the wine shipments when they come. He's a regular at our house.

I pointed at the newest package when the Hubby came home. He ripped it open and gasped, "My ammo bag is here!" He was already changing out of his work clothes. He strapped that "ammo bag" across his chest and turned to face me. In just his drawers.

I busted a gut at the sight of him and said, "You've gone and bought yourself a purse! And a fine, pretty one at that."
He immediately said, "It's not a purse! It's a pouch to hold my ammo when I shoot."
I said, "OK, Hangover Guy. But, it's still a purse. Stay still. I've got to get a picture of this!"
He immediately slung off his purse in a huff and said, "Why, so you can mock me on your blog? And It's not a purse. It's an ammo pouch made from the finest leather in England."
I said, "If you're going to wear a purse, I have every right to mock you on my blog. In fact— it is necessary."
He wouldn't put the purse back on. He just hung it on around the mirror of his dresser, where I eyed it up, thinking it really would make a gorgeous purse for the Fall season.
My Victoria came troucing through the room the next day and stopped short with a gasp of wonder, "What is that?" she said pointing at the fine English leather.
I said casually, "Oh, that's your Dad's new purse."
She didn't even miss a beat, like her dad brings home new purses everyday. "Can I borrow it? It would look great with my outfit."
I said, "Honey, I don't think your dad likes to share his fashions."
She tried.

But, he caught her, trying to sneak off with his ammo purse. He's since filled up his purse with shotgun shells and hidden it away from our purse lusting hands. This is one shopping hobby I think I'm going to like. Maybe, the girls and I will start a new fashion trend, Ammo Purses.

Today's Download: AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long." See, my Ipod has been lost misplaced by ODawg someone. I know, right? And yesterday, I had a day full of good wife and mom chores and there was no way I could get through all those soul-killing deeds without some music, so I grabbed one of The Hubby's Ipods. Another good thing about his Mac Love, we have an abundance of Ipods, since there are new generations being born every day.
I set if for shuffle, cause that's how I roll. Surprise Me. And surprise me that iPod did. 
It was marching music. That's right. Marching Music. "It's A Grand Ole Flag," to be exact. I thought, who downloads marching music and when is he listening to this— on his Dixie Chopper?  So I skipped to the next song.  It was something by Nickelback.  I knew it was Nickelback because my ears started to bleed. I changed that song mighty quick so as not to lose my hearing from their putrid sound.
The next tune was from A Flock of Seagulls.  Enough said. 
I started shuffling through his playlist and I am convinced after viewing his vast array of musical genres that he just logs onto Itunes, closes his eyes and purchases away. What else can explain Andre 3000 on the same playing field as The Carpenters? 
I'm not even going to ask.
But, for today, a fantastically, misogynistic song with a great beat that kept me sorting socks all day and for that, Angus Young, I will be forever grateful.