Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

This Post is Dedicated to Tom, Greg, Patrick & Other Such Fanatic, Obsessed Husbands With Hobbies

For those of you just joining us, I’ve spent the past couple of posts sharing the story of Tom’s purchase of a small sailboat a year and a half ago and the ensuing expenses of maintaining and upgrading said boat, sometimes to my total dismay at the cost of such.  (See here & here for the details – you don’t want to miss them, believe me.)

I mean, I’m a fairly intelligent woman (and I don’t want to hear any guffaws from you guys about the “woman” part of that phrase) – an attorney, even – but sometimes Tom’s thinking totally defied logic.  (Such as the “men don’t measure” comment and how he could not (apparently) be one bit concerned with costs of such a hobby (sport, relaxation therapy – whatever men call their “toys).

But I finally gained deep insight into his thinking as we were coming into Lowe’s (to buy my new, “extravagant” purchase for myself (yeah, right) of a durable trash can!?!) when he explained the following to me.  It went like this:

Tom says, “You see, Dee . . . I haven’t really spent that much money at all on this marine plywood and the other boat things I’ve gotten.”

Me:  “How do you figure that, pray tell?”

“Because they were ‘Boat Dollars’,” he (patiently & gently) explained (to me, a mere woman).   “Ron (Tom’s best friend) explained to me when he got his boat that one boat dollar is equivalent to 10 dollars, so in “Boat Dollars,” I’ve only spent about $15 dollars, not $150.”

“Now do you understand?!” he said.  “And aren’t you proud of me for being so frugal with my boat dollars?”

Sigh.

I’m sure there are guitar, gun and drum set dollar exchanges, as well, for husbands like Patrick and Greg.  The best I can figure, it’s sort of like exchanging U. S. Dollars for foreign currency.  Except that this currency is all in husbands’ minds for whatever their fancy happens to be.

To be fair, I have to say I know some women who have the same sort of currency system when it comes to clothes, shoes, decorating, arts & crafts, etc.  It’s not all one sided.

Me?  I’m not sure I have such a system in place.  I think I have in the past to some degree with books, music (another big currency system of some husbands, btw) and the like.  But in the more recent past and present, I’m working much harder at (1) keeping Tom from going into debt with his “boat dollars” (ha!) and (2) storing up my currency in heavenly places for my life to come.

We all have currency exchanges, I think, each in our own different way.  Thank God He gives us pleasurable activities on this earth to engage ourselves in, but may we always also keep in mind where we want our lasting treasures to be.

Cheers!  And many blessings to each of you today!!  Dee