Meaningful Returns

I have a story to tell, and it has very little to do with Cam Newton and his Versace pants, but just enough that I justified creating that scintillating if not somewhat misleading title. But first, some context:

I own a truck. The truck is a great truck (a Toyota Tundra) that I love, and I bought it from a charming gentleman in the town of Bath, NC. I kept the decal on the back window that says “Bath Life” because Bath is the oldest town in the Old North State, and I’ve never seen another sticker like it. People always ask me what it means, and I get to tell them about Bath and the charming gentleman and the unique nature of the decal every time. But anyway, the truck is 15 years old, and it has about 150,000 miles on it, and it is easily the nicest vehicle I’ve ever owned. And as I said before, I love it.

But the thing about life is sometimes things catch your eye that you don’t have that you think you might want, and in order to get the thing you want you figure out ways to try and transform it into more of a need, or at least a really want. This has happened to me recently, and by recently I mean last night.

Honda makes a vehicle called a Ridgeline, and though I have always wondered how car companies come up with these names, that’s not important right now. What’s important is that the Ridgeline has four doors but also a small truck bed in the back, and many cool, typically-Honda features. So someday, I think I want to get one, because it is slightly more practical than an actual full-sized truck for someone who has a one-year old and works in an office helping people uncomplicate their lives financially.

And I saw one for sale last night and I wanted to make “someday” today, and I began to crunch all sorts of numbers and tell myself all sorts of lies about how this was definitely a good purchase.

But, it really wasn’t. I mean, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world, and we wouldn’t have had to sell our cat or the cool vacuum we just bought to pay for the Ridgeline, but as I said twice before, I love my Tundra, and it is a great truck. Here’s the thing though: had it not been for a very good conversation with my amazing partner in life, I probably would have pulled the trigger, and added just a little bit more stress to our lives, and it would have been a terrible case of line jumping our financial priorities.

All this is simply to say, it’s very important to talk about big decisions like Versace pants and new cars with someone who isn’t as emotionally tied to the decision as you are and who will be effected by it at least as much as you are. Sometimes this will be the same person (it was last night), but other times it will be multiple people. Whatever the case may be, TALK.