They Mocked His Gear Until the Cliff Broke

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I'm a wilderness survival junkie, and a bunch of like-minded friends and I put together a wilderness survival team.

To give them better gear, I sank a fortune of my own into a company that makes custom outdoor adventure equipment.

Every single time, I ate the cost so they'd have the best.

A week before we were set to go compete in the Eastvale Grand Canyon Survival Challenge, my teammate Jackson Lambert brought along the woman he'd been set up with, Hester Fox.

The second Hester saw the price sheet I'd drawn up, the snide tone started.

"Oh my God, this is highway robbery, isn't it? Twenty grand for one set of gear?"

My teammate Harvey Lawrence explained, "That's not expensive at all. Retail runs seventy, eighty grand."

Myra Whitney chimed in. "Right, Darrell's only ever charged us cost. Half the time he's losing money on it."

Hester shot back, "Cost? That's just the line he feeds a bunch of gullible idiots. My family's in the outdoor gear business too, and a full set runs two grand."

Just like that, a few of them perked up.

"Two grand? That's several times cheaper."

"Hester, why don't you handle all our gear purchases from now on?"

"Yeah, Hester, please, come on, buy it for us."

Then someone tagged me right away.

"Darrell, all these years we treated you like a brother, and you've been squeezing a tenfold markup out of us."

"Exactly, Darrell Dickerson. We all get that business is about making money, sure, but a tenfold markup? That's just cold-blooded."

Making dirty money?

I laughed. All these years, everything I gave them was custom, charged at cost. Once you factored in labor and shipping, I was losing money on every set.

I fired back one line. "Fine. Then go buy the two-grand stuff from Hester."

Two-thousand-dollar gear, and you'd actually stake your life on it? That's not gambling with your own neck?

1. I'm a die-hard wilderness survival fanatic, and that's why I joined a wilderness survival team.

To give them the best gear, I sank a fortune of my own into starting a wilderness supply company.

A few days ago, my teammates and I agreed to enter the wilderness survival competition at the Eastvale Grand Canyon.

To prepare the best-fitting, sturdiest survival gear for them,

I invited them out to dinner so I could measure their height and weight while I was at it, and custom-build their outdoor equipment.

I booked the biggest private room at The Grand Table, the most famous restaurant in our city.

The team trickled in one after another. The last to arrive was Jackson, and this time he had a girl with him.

"Darrell, let me introduce you. This is my girlfriend, Hester. She's into wilderness survival too."

"Nice to meet you. Welcome to the family."

I stood to shake Hester's hand, but she flinched back on instinct, putting on a flustered little act.

Like she wanted the others to think I was trying to cop a feel.

I didn't bother with Hester. I just pulled a form out of my jacket.

"Everybody fill in your height and weight. Deposit same as always, straight to my account."

It wasn't our first time working together, so everyone paid up front, then picked up the forms and started filling them out like old pros. That was when Hester snatched a form away.

She put on a wildly exaggerated expression on purpose.

"Oh my God, are my eyes playing tricks on me? One set of this stuff costs over twenty grand?"

Then Hester rounded on me, seething.

"Darrell Dickerson, two thousand dollars' worth of stuff, and you're charging everyone twenty?"

"That's about as cold-blooded as it gets, don't you think?"

I looked at this Hester, a little surprised, and asked with a genuinely puzzled face, "The two grand you're talking about, that's probably some cheap junk out of a backroom sweatshop, isn't it?"

"Right, Darrell's gear works great for us."

"Hester, you just don't know that wilderness survival gear is expensive to begin with."

But Hester, calm as anything, pulled out her phone and found a few photos.

"Take a look, everyone. This is what my family's shop sells, exactly the same as yours. Now check the price."

In a second everyone crowded around Hester, staring at the photos and prices on her phone.

I glanced over from a distance too.

It was a listing off a discount online marketplace, and the price under it really was around two grand.

But I'd been in this trade long enough to know the cost of every piece down to the last cent. At that price, you couldn't even buy the raw materials. It was almost certainly cut-corner knockoff junk.

And yet the way the whole crew was looking at me now had changed.

Jackson was the first to come at me.

"Darrell, care to explain this?"

The words were barely out of Jackson's mouth when Percy Delgado, beside him, jumped in.

"No wonder Darrell was so eager, treating us to a big dinner, measuring our height and weight and all. Turns out he was planning to make it all back off us?"

"Darrell, you're in business, you've got to turn a profit, we get that. But a markup like this, ten times over? That's just cold-blooded."

"Exactly, Darrell Dickerson. You don't have a conscience left."

I caught the flicker of a smug smile on Hester's face, but she smoothed it over fast, switching to a pitiful, wounded look.

"I'm sorry, everyone. I shouldn't have opened my mouth, shouldn't have cut into someone's livelihood."

"But I really couldn't stand to see you all get ripped off. If you don't believe me, I'll sell you these sets myself, two grand each."

That got the whole bunch even more worked up.

"Hester, you'd really let us have a set for two grand? That'd be amazing."

"I scrimp and save every month, finally scrape together enough to buy gear, and some heartless capitalist's been fleecing me this whole time."

"Man, you really never know what's in someone's heart."

"..."

Jackson saw the mood was good and ready, and shot to his feet.

"Darrell Dickerson, you cold-blooded snake, hurry up and give us our money back."