Howdy,
Just registered, figured I’d introduce myself.
I’m Mark, from near Youngstown, OH. Married, one kid, ~50 years old. A few summers ago on a vacation back to Maine where I grew up, the cottage we were renting had a couple kayaks. It was a great way to get out on the water, get a little exercise, etc. Thought “this would be nice to do more often”, but never actually did anything.
Fast forward a couple years. Virus hits. Playing ice hockey (my/our primary hobby for the past 5 years or so) is no longer an option (no place to play at first, now stuff is open but it seems pretty risky/irresponsible to be playing). My wife and I have to use a week of vacation or lose it, so we do a “staycation”. Wife suggests we find some kayaks to borrow. A local hockey buddy has a bunch, and we borrow. Over the course of a week we check out a few local flat water places and enjoy it. Borrowed boats were an Old Town Otter 9.5, Perception SOT that I can’t remember the model of, and a New Wave Buzz SOT. We nicknamed the Buzz the “widow maker” because it was pretty darned unstable and really liked to have the paddler pointing in random directions as compared to the other two.
Start researching our own kayaks. Discover that we are not alone in this journey at the moment. lol. 
We end up finding a couple new 10’ rec boats, an Old Town Vapor 10 Angler and a Third Coast Huron, via Dunham Sports. There’s multiple retail stores around here and their inventory control is horrible, so their online inventory isn’t reliable. Found both boats by just calling stores, then driving to them hoping what they had will still be there when we arrive. Those boats go to my wife and son.
That seemed to dry up anything I could find, and all the used stuff I was seeing was both in short supply and really expensive. I thought I wanted a short rec boat, so I put a deposit down on a Perception Drift 9.5 that is supposed to be coming in to our local outdoor store and buy the widow maker above from our buddy… The other two boats weren’t for sale.
That all happens over the period of a week or two. Yes, we are absolutely “those band wagon people” at this point.
Continue to go to various flat water around us… Still having fun. Great way to get some exercise, catch up on a podcast, etc.
Another buddy sees that we’re kayaking. Wants to sell me a Pelican Wave. I don’t really need that, but its so cheap that I can’t say no. Interesting boat… Super slow. Super stable. Can spin like a top. Not really comfortable, but fun to play around in.
I keep watching reviews / reading stuff / whatever (hello, Paddling.com during this process!). Decide I’m really interested in a Perception Joy Ride 10. Then decide I probably really want a Dagger Axis 10.5. Call the local outdoor place and they don’t have an Axis coming in their July order, and now they’re not sure the July order is going to be a thing at all. But they do have an Axis 12.0 sitting on the floor, their last rec boat in stock. I hadn’t been looking at longer than 10.5’ boats because I wasn’t sure they’d fit well in our van, but my wife’s PFD wasn’t fitting all that great anyway, so we go up there. Two birds, one stone. Turns out the boat fits in the van. Its double+ the budget I originally intended with the Drift, but its really hard to paddle a boat that’s on order.
So… we went from “gee kayaking might be cool” to owning 5 boats in about a month’s time. We try and get out every couple days at least, and are having a good time. Always fun to learn about new hobbies! We’ll see where this takes us. My plan at this point is that now that we all have boats that we like, to just find places to go paddle, take pictures, and enjoy it.
Thanks for having me here and TIA for helping us with all our stupid newbie questions!
Mark