Other Such Holes-in-One

To My Glassy-Eyed Husband:

It is not lost on me that the excitement of the You Won’t Believe How Much I Saved You conversation is lost on you. So I thought I would take a moment and break it out for you in an analogy that you can understand.

Let’s say you get up early on a Saturday morning, pull on one of those sleek, birdie-inspiring shirts from your Ashworth/Nike/Adidas rainbow, and you head out to meet your guys on a dewy, rolling green course. As you’re loading your clubs on the back of the cart you take in deep breaths of that sweet, freshly-cut grass smell.

With your first tee shot you outdrive your own expectations for the day. You are instantly in your groove and by the time you finish the eighteenth and make it back to the clubhouse you’ve finished the round at 66, six under par for this course. You are on such an adrenaline high that you text your wife, negotiating extra time for an “emergency 9” or “emergency 18” so as to further demonstrate your golf prowess to the guys in your entourage. “Fine,” she says. (Well, maybe that’s not EXACTLY what she says, but it if we quoted her verbatim that would take a few paragraphs and require too much editing….)

So you play your emergency holes –let’s say 18- and finish that round with another 66. You are a Golf King.

Over dinner you tell The Wife and The Child how you conquered the course. They “woo hoo” you and appropriately bat their eyes at the hero at their table. It is a good day.

Well, How Much I Save You is a lot like that for me.

Only I start the day by pulling out comfortable shopping shoes and when I head out it’s to meet one of my girls in a shiny retail (and by “retail” I most often mean “outlet”) establishment. And as I’m loading the necessary baggage on the back of the stroller I’m taking in deep breaths of new stuff, new discounted stuff.

Armed with a purse brimming with percent-off coupons, I become euphoric when I discover that the sales racks are full, the clearance bins are stuffed to overflowing, and there is no “limit one coupon per customer per day” in the fine print. I am on such an adrenaline high that I forget to text you at all until you finally send inquiry about where we are and what we’re doing.

I finish the day having spent $147 (try not to dwell here, keep your eyes moving), but having saved $363 in the process. The total possible dollars in this not-at-all hypothetical transaction was $510 (and let me tell you, that included 4 pair of must-have designer jeans). I saved $363 or a whopping SEVENTY-ONE PERCENT.

And this is where it is important that you listen:

In the golf example above, where you shot 66 on a course where par is 72, you saved EIGHT PERCENT.

In my shopping scenario? Where I saved seventy-one percent? Well, that is equivalent to shooting a 21 on a par 72. Which is at least FIFTEEN HOLES-IN-ONE in one round.

And honey? I know you sometimes think that there is nothing I enjoy more than spending your money. But that’s not quite true – I find much more enjoyment in SAVING your money. It’s just that sometimes the point is best made by spending a little. And then, following the latest installment in the Golf King dinner-time series, by interjecting with a little banter from the You Won’t Believe How Much I Saved You files. And sometimes, the clippings pulled from those files deserve a little woo-hoo-ing, too.

So I’m kind of thinking that to help you out for the foreseeable future, when the floor has been opened for the How Much I Saved report, I’ll just give it to you as a golf score:

You: How was the shopping trip?
Me: Awesome! Shot a 37.

And once you get the hang of it:
Me: How was the golf?
You: Great! I saved seventeen percent off par and set a new course record!

And then? Then we’ll really be communicating.

Love,
Your Other Such Wife

(P.S. – Just because this post is directed to you does not mean that you are expected to peel back the curtain of your feedback-averse anonymity and leave a comment. You can go ahead and take a deep breath now.)