I had won the victory over myself...

At the gun show last weekend, I was shuffling down an aisle, hoping for something interesting to catch my eye after several tables full of new-production Glocks and Smiths and Springfields. I drew level with the table manned by the guy from whom I'd bought my .32 Safety Hammerless a few shows back.

"Hey!" he called out, "It's the gal who likes the old guns!" I smiled and nodded, glancing over his wares and remembering how he'd spent time painstakingly explaining to me how a top-break Smith was opened and how the thing on the back was a grip safety and...

"I've got some special ones you might like to see," he said, pulling a big Plano case out from under the table and popping the latches. He lifted the lid to reveal several absolutely gorgeous Model Number One-and-a-Half New Models, that wer...

"Now, these are .32 rimfire Smiths," he said "which are 'tip-ups' instead of 'top breaks', and that means they..." He proceeded to go on and demonstrate the reloading process for a tip-up Smith while I bit my tongue and ogled the absolutely cherry nickel plating on one he wasn't handling, which was... wait; the trigger and hammer were plated as well, rather than case-colored, which meant...

"Now this one," he continued "is the purtiest of the bunch, but you can see that the hammer and this little trigger piece are nickel-plated, too. That means it was refinished, because they're supposed to be blued." I continued to bite my tongue while he went on about grips being numbered to frames and the stamped star mark that would indicate a factory refinishing and lots of other fairly basic antique Smith trivia.

Not seeing anything that I couldn't live without, I nodded my thanks and continued on. Not too much later I ran across a table with a really rough Smith & Wesson Model Number Two (a.k.a. the "Old Army", despite the fact it had never been purchased by, you know, the Army.) This example was missing the leaf spring that doubled as a cylinder stop and rear sight, and was horribly pitted, but the owner had dragged it to almost two years worth of shows and its price had gradually been dropping to where it was practically worth it for parts. "Excuse me," I asked, "may I see that really ugly..."

"This is a Smith & Wesson No. 2," he replied, reaching for it. "It's sometimes called the Old Army, even though the Army never adopted it. Now, it's what's called a 'tip-up' Smith, which means it opens like..."

I found that I didn't even have to bite my tongue. Finally, after almost twenty years of snapping back and correcting blatant errors made in patronizing tones, I not only didn't have the energy, but didn't even want to any more. I just smiled pleasantly and let him talk. I had won the victory over myself. I loved Big Brother.