Gratitude

I've been paying for everything with cash lately (thanks to Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps to Financial Freedom) and that includes a vehicle. Of course, cash is limiting when you make larger puchases, which is exactly the point.  It limits you to...  what you actually have!

As is frequently the case, the vehicle I actually could afford was not what I actually the vehicle I wanted.  Nonetheless, there was a certain joy and intoxication in staying within budget and not owing a dime after the transaction was done.

Last week, this intoxication began to wear off. The vehicle is a respectable Nissan Pathfinder with over a hundred thousand miles on it, but the air conditioner sometimes doesn't come on.  Typically, the kids and I who get a good joke out of it.  In fact, every time I turn it on, I say to the kids, "Who thinks the A/C will work today?"

My husband David, however, had joined us for the trip this weekend, and he was not happy.  (The prospect of a four hour trip made it a lot less amusing.)

Normally, when we ride around town with the windows down, my hair whips in the wind and I think, "this is the way it feels to be debt free!"  Alive... happy... hot!

Usually, however, the A/C comes on within a few minutes,  and we have the option of putting the windows up.

But, on our trip, it took a while. We rolled down the windows.  I made a joke.  David figeted uncomfortably in his seat.  I felt like the person who'd taken their family to a movie everyone hated.  I was, after all, the purchaser of the Pathfinder!  Nevertheless, we sped down the road, my hair flying around and trying not to pay attention to David's annoyance.

Finally, after a while -- a long while -- the A/C came on.  It's been on ever since. But there's something quite humbling about living in Tennessee in the sweltering summers and not really knowing what's going to happen when you turn on the ignition.

But I know one thing for sure.  I think it's good for the kids to know the inconvenience of getting what you can afford, not necessarily what other people have. I think it's good that we sometimes ride around town with our arms on the windows enjoying the wind and dreading the stop lights.  Whereas their friends have nice leather seats with DVD players that flip out of the ceiling, we have each other, some jokes, and an otherwise very reliable Pathfinder.

When we finally do get a vehicle that has an A/C that works?  Wow -- the kids will notice and will be very thankful. 

And you know what? I will be too.