Wendy and I celebrated our 21st anniversary last night at the Mona Lisa, a fancy restaurant in downtown Manitou Springs. Earlier in the week Wendy asked me to take her there. Our typical dates are Schlotzsky’s sandwiches (and we split a large) during an evening of grocery shopping. This restaurant is at least $50 a plate. Wow.
What if I would have said, “We cannot afford it”? We’re frugal people, right? Do frugal people eat a $100 fondu meal? Hardly. Like my son’s tennis shoes I blogged on a few days ago, the evening out could have been more wisely spent somewhere else.
But without hardly a second thought, I made reservations. I forked up the dough, and “we cannot afford it” didn’t cross my mind. “I cannot afford it” would have been a lie, and my wife would have sniffed that out better than my son with his shoes.
The truth is that both of these price tags carry about the same value: $100. Unless I make less than $100 per week, I can afford the $100 that week. My son and my wife are not asking me to “afford” this expense; they’re asking me to value the same thing as they value.
My wife wanted me to take her out to the Mona Lisa for our 21st anniversary. She values it enough to come up with her own money, I suppose (though our money is the same, which makes it a little more complicated). But you know what? It was worth every penny.
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