MY FAMILY
With good reason. Not so long ago, I ventured out to Spotsylvania Mall to get a big chocolate-chip cookie.
And came back three hours later with an 18-foot powerboat from the mini-show in the mall's concourse.
Since then, my family doubts I can be trusted around any display of the sleek, snazzy powerboats I would love to collect the way Elvis did Cadillacs.
In the past few weeks, I've made them nervous twice, taking in a boat show at the conference center here and another at the state fairgrounds in Richmond.
While people who don't get excited over boats probably won't understand this fascination, most boat owners know the desire to always be choosing their next one.
Even if, as I do, they already have one in perfectly good working order.
The fascination is very much like the one many folks have with cars.
Sure, they're happy with their GMC or Subaru.
But the second next year's models come out, they can't wait to take a look, reveling in every new design, option and radical paint job.
That's how it is with me and boats.
Walking through the cavernous halls where they hold these boat shows, I spot each new twist and trend.
Like yellows and blacks? They're hot color schemes these days, along with bronze and antique blue, especially on high-end Chris Craft runabouts recalling those classic boats of an earlier era.
Other things causing excitement: more ecologically friendly outboards, stainless steel everything, bathrooms on smaller and smaller boats and sterns that feature swim platforms and walk-through entrances.
Storage under every seat, entertainment centers, built-in coolers, GPS units and even built-in air pumps, to help you blow up rafts and tubes, are other neat features.
Also drawing interest is a relatively new class of craft called deck boats, which combine the wide-open deck layout of a pontoon boat with the smooth-running, V-shaped hull of a runabout.
I also get a kick out of the way boat makers are packing more comforts of home into cruisers--the nautical version of the RV. They come complete with bunks, kitchens, bathrooms and flat-screen TVs.
In days past, these were typically in huge cabin cruisers 30 or 40 feet long.
Today, they can squeeze not just one, but two different convertible bunks into a cruiser just 24 feet long.
And many are doing a bang-up job of combining the best parts of the typical runabout ski boat with those of a cruiser.
They call the little staterooms in these craft cuddy cabins, and it fascinates me to see how the space that accommodates a table at dinnertime becomes a master suite when the sun goes down.
At the Richmond show on Thursday, I shared the tale of my impulse buy with one of the show sales people.
I asked: Do many people make out-of-the-blue purchases like that?
"Most people we'll sell boats to here have been thinking about buying, typically shopping for a while," said Lisa Keen of Richmond's Nautical Marine.
"But every now and then, we'll get someone who comes with no idea of buying a boat, but leaves with one," she added. "It happens."
As it did for me, when I got so worked up over the boat that I forgot the cookie.
Rob Hedelt: 540/374-5415