Oops, I ALMOST did it again!

I moved out of my parent's house when I was 19 years old. I didn't get married 'till I was 25. During the six years in between, I learned to become somewhat self-reliant and very independent. It was not within my "scope of practice" to really think about anyone other than myself. Randy, however, grew up in a home that regularly made it a point to include everyone in everything. As a consequence, he is a bit more thoughtful of others than I tend to be. Usually it just never dawns on me to include anyone else in my life because I spent so many years alone.

Normally the only problem my independence causes between my husband and I is hurt feelings (he has learned to get over this!) due to my inability to consider other people in my plans. One of the biggest times I forgot to include Randy was a few years back. I decided it was time to purchase a new car and I, coming from a considerably frugal background, began to look for something with good MPG, that was also cheap and reliable. My husband, however, wanted to get a new Mustang. As with everything else in our marriage, (we often have very different ideas about things... I'll tell you about the sofa debacle another time) we were at somewhat of an impasse. To rectify this situation, I took it upon myself to purchase a car without telling him.

Needless to say, Randy was PISSED. His feelings were hurt, he felt left out, blah blah blah. I told him to get over it, he wasn't getting a Mustang. In retrospect, I can see how he felt a little left out. He had gone up to a friend's house for a while that day, and while up there he gets a phone call from me saying, "do you want to come check out this car before I sign the paperwork?" It's still a sore subject today.

As you can imagine, I didn't really learn my lesson on that one.

Recently, over the Christmas break, the car problems we had only got worse. We came to discover that the engine problems were pretty bad and it was going to be expensive to fix. In fact, Randy called me from the mechanic pretty distraught to tell me how much it was going to cost! I told him to come home and we'd make a decision that evening. While Randy was on his way home, I jumped online to look at new cars. By the time he walked through the door I had contacted the dealership and had my credit approved to buy another car. It didn't even dawn on me to include my poor husband in the decision. He walked through the door, visibly upset, and all I said was, "Well I found a new car to buy. It's cheap, with low mileage. We pick it up at 6:30 tonight. Now, help me find my pay stubs from work." Randy, now fully used to this kind of behavior just, started looking for the paperwork.

At 6:30 PM we arrived at the dealership to test drive the car. As we climbed into this compact car (with only 6K miles), I swear the car moaned when we all climbed in. As we test drove it around the block, Randy noticed it was making a clicking sound. I assured him that the car was probably supposed to make that kind of clicking sound... it was totally normal. Thankfully, Randy insisted that the car was NOT the kind of we needed. So we began to look around for more.

In retrospect, it's somewhat amusing that we found ourselves in front of this Ford Mustang. Randy really loved it. I kinda did too. But I was looking at a Mini Cooper and VW Bug! That's when my frugality went completely out the window, and in the showroom I found a lovely red truck! We had them open up the entire showroom and pull the truck out so we could drive it around. Randy and I suddenly got all giddy, and my cheap sensibility ran right out the door. Two hours later, Randy was driving his new truck home...

Yeah, I gave him the new truck. Why? Because he graduates this May... and it will be his turn to buy ME a car. I secretly call the big red truck my little piece of leverage!