I walked into a pawnshop looking for a gun and walked out with a banjo.
 The last thing I need is another hobby. I suffer chronic frustration because I clutter my life with so many plans, projects, and activities, it seems I never carry out, finish, or attain proficiency in any of them.
 I probably shouldn’t be allowed out of the house with more than a dollar in my pocket without adult supervision. I usually spend an extra dollar at least three times.
 The only way someone as undisciplined as I can avoid bankrupting the family budget is to have an allowance rather than access to all income. To be fair, we pay ourselves the same monthly allowance for personal expenses such as hobbies and lottery tickets. My wife saves most of hers; I spend all of mine and then some. I have more expensive hobbies than she, and, alas, more of them.
 Voluntary overtime means extra spending money. I volunteered often in recent weeks to pay down my maxed-out overdraft protection at the bank. I even got a few dollars ahead of the game, but not for long.
 I don’t need a banjo. I had one for a few months 35 years ago. I was just learning to make it sound a little like a banjo and my fingertips had begun to acquire the necessary calluses when I had to pawn it to pay a traffic fine.
 Before that, I played clarinet in grade school, accordion in junior high and guitar in high school. I became proficient in none of them. I have three harmonicas, but I don’t play with them enough to be able to play them. As a musician, I play a mean CD and cassette.
 I’m trying to reduce the clutter in my life, both physical and mental. The things I enjoy most are reading, writing, hunting, and fishing. What I should do is abandon other pursuits so that I can put the most into and get the most out of those four things.
 Having run out of space for books, I’m gradually winnowing out those I’ll never read again.
 We sold our sailboat a few years ago. Our waterborne lives are simplified by its replacement—a canoe.
 My salmon rods gather dust in the garage and crab traps become rust, but I retain my primary piscatorial passion—flyfishing for trout.
 Hunting takes precedence over other outdoor activities, and I’ve made time to hunt more and in unfamiliar areas.
 I’m continually striving to allocate more time to writing, but I can’t bring myself to make everything else secondary. So my two book projects progress in infrequent spurts, and this column doesn’t always get written every week on schedule.
 My streamlining plan suffered a setback a few Christmases ago when my wife got me started in model railroading. That hobby is a glutton for time, money, and space that I could have done without, but, what the heck, it’s fun. For me and for the grandkids, of course.
 My plan suffered another setback when I enrolled in a virtual university on the Internet. It turns out there is as much time-wasting busy work in cyber-education as there is in a brick-and-mortar school.
 I ran across a model airplane kit my sister gave me for Christmas more than 20 years ago, and, in a weak moment, I opened the box, cleared a spot on a basement worktable, and began construction. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop at one.
 I miss sailing, so the plans I bought years ago for a small sailboat clamor for attention. If I move a couple of things out of the garage, there’ll be room to build it.
 I didn’t really need another gun, but I decided I could sell one pistol and buy the other, thereby reducing the expense.
 What I didn’t need was another category of project, something that would take time away from things I have trouble making enough time for as it is.
 What I really didn’t need was another banjo.