"Converting" Dreams to Reality

My friend Mark's blog, Tales of the Sissy, has a post about owning a convertible that will be important for me read every once in a while. He has dreamed of having a convertible since he was a little kid.

Some people are just this way.

If you have never taken a ride in a convertible, you are really missing an experience. In college, my roommate Amy had a convertible 1970-something VW Cabriolet, and I had no car, so we did everything in that tin can. Hauling groceries was a nightmare, because of the tiny back seat, the wind was always biting cold when the top was down, except in August, when you just wanted to turn the A/C on, your hair was always a crumpled Halloween fright, often with smashed bugs in it, and did I mention that the top leaked? When it rained, she would line the floor with plastic bags, and when it snowed, a fine layer of ice would form inside the cab along the edge of the top.

It was hardly a "Pink Moon" time.

Amy grew to hate that car. It's four gear manual transmission was awful on long drives (and all drives in Wisconsin were long). Anything above 60, and you had to shout to be heard through the engine and wind noise. The trunk was laughable...you couldn't even fit a dead possum into it (see how I worked that in!?).

And I was stuck with this crap-ass vehicle by virtue of the fact that I had zero transport, so I had to be grateful to get a ride (for the record, I was grateful...there were just some really low moments).

All of which is to say that I'm none to excited about convertibles. They seem like more trouble than they're worth, and would be the guy who would never take the extra thirty seconds to put the top down, so the whole experience would be wasted on me.

Michael, however, is much like Mark: obsessed with getting a convertible. I'm not sure that Michael has pinned up a centerfold in his cubicle yet, but he definitely lusts after the youthful exuberance of messy hair. He was just getting to the point where he was getting excited about being able to actually get his dream car in the next year, when...we got engaged. As we started talking about how we would pay for it all, his hopes of getting a new car were dashed. It was the first negative thing he said about the whole idea of getting married.

He's really been a trooper: privately mourning the postponement of this milestone, while publicly putting up a good front. But, I know that it's still important to him.

So, I know that I should look over Mark's posting about the joy of convertibles, so that I can stay excited about Michael getting one, so he can stay excited about getting one, so we can make sure that it stays a priority in the grand scheme of things, because what's important to him is important to me, and it's important for us to be on the same page about these things, right?

That's what building a relationship is all about.