I Fell For It
Earlier this week, Shelly and I were discussing our upcoming trip to Ireland. I mentioned that I'd done a bit of digging on airfare and had found some pretty good deals that got our tickets into the $750 range.
"Those are coach tickets, right?", she asked.
"Yeah. Why wouldn't they be?", I responded.
"Because we're flying to Ireland in first class. I thought we talked about this.", she continued.
I'm not sure exactly what she said immediately after that because there was this loud buzzing sound in my head that kind of muffled what she said. I think the buzzing came from the giant flying dollar signs that were whizzing around my head at the time.
As the buzzing subsided, I rejoined the conversation.
"…because I'm OK with flying coach here in the US, but for a long flight across the Atlantic, I want something like British Airways first class. You know, with the beds…"
The whizzing dollar signs were back. I didn't notice the teeth before.
I objected strenuously, indicating my complete unwillingness to go along with this particular preference. I then moved on, in completely predictable fashion, to cite the actual cost of such flights (anywhere from $3,000 to $11,000 per seat) in comparison to other things in our lives (like the fact that we only paid $6500 for my truck 4 years ago).
The argument continued until we went to bed and I dreamed about the whizzing dollar signs devouring our life savings. I spent much of my "break" times during the following day building a case against this extravagance: comparison flight prices, other things we could buy instead of that flight, things we could do *on* the vacation with the same money, etc.
In short, I was preparing to go to war over first class airfare. I went home with all of my ammunition, prepared to dig a trench and start firing.
We sat down to dinner and I launched into my prepared tirade. I got maybe 2 sentences into my speech when Shelly interrupted me.
"You know I was just messing with you, right?"
The whizzing dollar signs fell to the floor. She knew me well enough to pick something that would really get to me and used it to reel me in. I completely fell for it.
First class airfare is one of those things where even if I had $300 million in the bank, I still wouldn't pay for. The idea of paying $2500 to sit in a bigger chair for 10 hours just doesn't make sense to me on any level except complete extravagance. She knew that.
We joke around and tease a lot here. Usually, Shelly's teasing is on a small scale, but this time she brought out the big guns and won in a huge way.
