free crap.

For some reason, when I went to the army convention last week, Josh worried about the men. Not that I've ever shown the slightest inclination for men in peak physical condition with steady government jobs, quite the contrary; skinny musicians are really more my bag. I tried to explain to him that I wasn't interested in the men that I would meet there, and once I got there I tried to tell him how many of them were shorter than I am. So many of them, in fact, that I began to worry about national security.

In any case, I think I finally convinced him that I didn't care anything about the men (or even the manly women). The best thing about an army conference with 20,000 attendees and hundreds of exhibitors is the free crap.

And, oh man, what a lot of crap it was. Every booth was giving away something, be it a token pen or keychain or something more creative but still moderately useful like a plastic coin bank or a combination compact, hairbrush, and sewing kit. Each of the three days of the conference, I returned back to the hotel with a new bag stuffed full of my day's haul. I was there to work, but I would take a break from our own booth (from which I obtained a lanyard, sunglasses, a calender, and tiny toy Humvees with chrome wheels), and wander among the various vendors' booths, just filling my bag (which I also obtained from some booth or other).

It had to be obvious that I was just there for the crap, as I wasn't even remotely interested in purchasing water filtration systems, guided missiles, or insurance. But then I remembered all the lanyards I had passed out to people who were really in no position to purchase an armoured military vehicle. Yes, people will exploit the giving away of free crap, but that's part of the rule. At least you get free advertising. Most of the people at the booths understood all this, probably because they were sneaking over to the other booths for free stuff, too.

But I wasn't even getting the really good stuff. On the last day of the conference, they shut the thing down at 5 PM, just like the other days. But then they open it up again that night, from 6 to 8, for some kind of free crap clamor. That's when the vendors bring out the stuff they'd been hoarding the whole time. Then generals and other higher-ups come in with their wives, all dolled up, because the scrambling for free crap is apparently a black tie event. These people bring empty suitcases with them to use to take away their prizes. Everyone crowds around the bigger companies, like Boeing or Raytheon or General Dynamics, because they have the best stuff. Then someone blows a whistle or sounds an alarm and it's every man for himself. Shirts, chairs, bookbags, I don't even know what else.

Half a dozen people individually told me about the event like it was the stuff of legends, and I kinda wanted to go. But I asked each one of those people if the stuff you came away with was worth the hassle of having an old woman in heels climb over you to get the next-to-last free Army logo coffee mug. And they all said no, it really wasn't, because free crap is still just free crap. I didn't want to have to deal with all those crazed people, and I didn't want to see our nation's leaders acting like desparate parents looking for Elmo dolls on Christmas Eve.

Besides, I definitely had more than enough crap, some of it crappier than others. I never did snag one of the stress-relief foam hand grenades that I saw floating around in the hands of other convention-goers, but that's okay. I got countless pens and keychains, a leather business card holder, a coffee mug, my picture taken with the Travelocity gnome, a luggage tag, a tiny carpenter's kit, three decks of cards, a screwdriver, a t-shirt, and so on and so on. But no free army men. I might could have gotten one of those if I'd tried, but I didn't want one anyway.