...and I ain't got nobody. I've got some money 'cause I just got paid....
Lotsa money, actually. I "just" got paid six times so far (tax free, no less...WHOOOOEEEEE) and haven't had a place to spend it yet. If I were smart, I'd just invest the surplus. I might yet, but I haven't decided if I'm that smart yet.
The money's burning a hole in my pocket, but I have penny-pinching disease pretty bad (since childhood, really), so the cash just sits there and smolders, most of the time.
I've been debating whether to purchase a carpet or two from one of the shops down by the PX. They have some lovely 4' by 6' Pakistani hand-knotted rugs, with vegetable-dyed brushed wool on wool warp and weft. I estimate them at about 120 knots per square inch--quality, but not high quality. They are genuine articles, though: no bleach-and-dye jobs to make them look older (and thus far more expensive), and they're all one piece. Absolutely beautiful, too. I half-heartedly haggled with the salesman, and he dropped from $480 to $440 per carpet in less than a minute. Hm.
The haggling was just for entertainment purposes, more than anything. What really keeps me from buying the carpets and shipping them home posthaste is, in a word, cats. The cats would just love them. I'm sure. As would the dog.
Plus, I'm not sure of the wisdom of paying that sort of money for something I will walk on. See...such floor finery makes more sense in a country where people strip their shoes off when they enter a home, as they can enjoy the appearance and the feel of the carpet, without treading it to oblivion. But in America, we wear shoes just everywhere, and it would be unreasonable and more stress than it was worth to try to keep even shod humans off the carpet, let alone prevent the cats from sharpening their claws on it. (Phlebas, that is...darling little daggered devil. The other two are unarmed.)
And I don't ever envision a time I won't have one or more cats sharing my living quarters, so I can't even justify the purchase based on any future expectation of use.
So I thought of buying one or two and using them as tapestries. This fails on a couple of counts, too. Carpets make very heavy tapestries. If you want a tapestry, why not just buy a tapestry? Also, they will only tempt Phlebas to climb the walls. He does it figuratively now. The addition of a thick, fuzzy wall hanging would merely add a new dimension to his acrobatics.
Meanwhile, I'm having my truck bed padded and covered. I'm paying for the work, but Michelle is doing the legwork*, so it'll be ready when I get home.
* Due to my personal hatred for running errands, the legwork alone is more often than not the reason I don't ever get around to things like this, so her contribution is, in my opinion, the lion's share of the job.
I've tossed around the idea of purchasing a Harley, too. They have the overseas Harley (and other cars) deals here. How this works is the government makes a deal with the manufacturers where you pay only so much if it's bought from on overseas location. I could pick up a $20,000 bike here for $16,000. It would be shipped to the address of my choice at the date of my choice, and financed at a particularly pleasing rate. The only taxes I'd pay would be when I first registered it. So...as long as I'm not registering it in California, I'd be okay. It's a very good deal, and I've been drooling over the Harleys I've seen lately. I hear the quality of the bike has improved considerably. But...I just don't ride often enough anymore to justify the expenditure.
I rode more when I didn't have to dress up like the Pillsbury Doughboy. But also, I think my comfort level has increased with age (doesn't everybody's?), so it's just not as pleasurable to ride as it once was. There's also my awareness of my own mortality--another thing that increases with age. I've always been a safe rider and I still ride sometimes, but the pleasure isn't as keen as it once was. It might be time to sell my baby.
I've thought about it. You know why I haven't? Because it feels like I'd be selling part of my identity, somehow. I don't even self-identify as a biker anymore, but...there it is. And maybe selling the bike signifies a concession of youth itself. I don't think I'm quite at that point yet.
But I'm getting there.
d
