As for my wife, I don't know where to start. She's been supportive through a series of bad decisions involving boats (describes every boat I've ever owned), and some of my cars (always supportive, it's just that not all of them were bad decisions).
I do my best to be as supportive as possible myself. Since we both know that we're going to get support from the other, we're careful what we ask for.
And I definitely won the lottery when I married, and have tried to live up to that every day.
My wife enables herself.......I bought a $5K classic Mini, she decided she needed a new (er) Allroad and traded the old one in.......WAY more money than the Mini!
I decided I wanted to build a shop attached to the house, and offered to double the size of the laundry room/dog grooming room for her in the process but she decided it was just too much money ( I agreed in the end) but she offered a shed in the back yard in compromise, as long as its as far away from the house as possible.
Still don't have a shed as she can't decide what style would look the best......
Guy traded in a chrome orange Elise at a dealership I worked at a long time ago.
Texted the wife "my dream car just came in." She didn't even hesitate, I purchased it less than 48 hours later. She even put up with the contortion act of getting in and out of the car
Two stories:
1. We were discussing our first cars and she did not know what an Opel GT was so I showed her a picture. She said "Oh my, we need one of those." My original one, some how some way is back in my driveway. 30 years later and 850 miles from where I left it. I will never get rid of it again.
2. I found a 951 a couple of years ago for $8k, kind of a fire sale as the guy needed a lawyer. My wife was about to head to Yellowstone for a vacation for her mother's 60th bday. Before she left she said "There better not be another Porsche in the driveway when I get home." However, when she got home 2 weeks later she said "I can't believe there is not another Porsche in the yard." I called the guy back and it was sold the day before.
Things my wife has said to me:
"Weren't you going to buy a 911 when you paid off your student loan?"
"I think I'd like to get a motorcycle so we could ride together."
"Yes, I will!" "I do." and "Let's start a family."
My wife has facilitated and enabled more joy and happiness in my life than I deserve.
I was going to post here but I think a lot of Tom's writing for the magazine pretty well covers it.
I decided I wanted to get a motorcycle and had the internal debate going for about a month trying to decide whether to buy one & ask forgiveness or ask permission up front. Decided asking permission was the right thing to do & her response was "Yes, as long as I can have my own." She was a keeper...
In 1976 when my wife and I were in graduate school, my wife was totally onboard over getting a TR-3. She enjoyed driving it till it broke and then I would fix it. I ended up selling it several years later after I got laid off and we moved 2 times. That was the last thing she has supported me on, but it has only been 47 years. I didn't even consider talking with her when I bought the second TR-3 right before I retired.
Nicole Suddard said:I was going to post here but I think a lot of Tom's writing for the magazine pretty well covers it.
You don't get away that easily.............you have to share at least one.
In reply to Tom1200 :
Biggest one recently was definitely the Porsche, but in general I don't tend to put up much of a fuss when he suggests buying something. I trust his instincts with finances and vehicles more than I trust my own, and he hasn't proven me wrong yet.
Plus, I get a cross-country road trip out of the Porsche adventure, something that I otherwise would have never considered possible because it requires so much time away from the office. And at the end of it all, there will be a Cayman in our garage.
Meanwhile, he's enabling me with my plans to revamp the exterior of our house. It needed paint and maintenance anyway, so I'm taking the opportunity to do a bit of a restomod and bring it back to looking more like its original midcentury self.
My wife agreed that it was a spectacular idea to drive a sketchy former Challenge Rampage across most of the US in the heart of summer in a car without AC.
It was a spectacular road trip and a hell of a lot of fun, I wouldn't have missed it for anything but you have to be at least mildly insane to do that lol
"If you're ever going to race that car, just finish it and do it!"
Raced at Daytona with my Dad and her dad at the beginning of the month.
Well she's put up with me and my car issues for 20+ years so...
The best one was awhile back I talked about selling the 911 and getting something different. She looked me dead in the face and said "nope". I wandered back to the garage and a few minutes later she opens the garage door and said "I'd kick you in your big fat head if you sell that car". Lol
My wife asked me yesterday why I hadn't bought my buddy's NC Miata already. (I'm eyeing an ND). I'm also talking of replacing my MINI and she didn't even blink.
Today my wife showed me an idea to repaint the garage floor.
My wife and I are very frugal, she is kinda into cars, Im really into cars.
We generally dont like to spend money frivolously, but it completely goes out the window for her when it comes to cars, Im the one that remains relatively reasonable about car spending. She stayed up late to watch the C8 reveal and has wanted one ever since. I had a c5 when we dated and she routinely tells me how she wants us to get another corvette, even though I already have 2 toys. So I think shes talking about a c5 or c6 maybe a c7, nope shes talking about a c8. Ill agonize over a potential car purchase or flip for a long time and her answer is always "go buy it." In the next breath we will both complain about the price of cheese.
I crashed my road race motorcycle at Road Atlanta and broke my arm pretty bad. The hospital drugged me up and loaded me into the passenger seat of my pick-up and my wife started the drive back to Ohio. I woke up somewhere in WV in the middle of the night and she looked at me and said "we should get a bigger trailer". She developed trailer envy watching all the other racers drive home from the track. We went from a POS 7x14 to a pimp 8.5 x 20' with all the goodies. it wasn't even on my radar to get a new trailer.
BEFORE
AFTER
In reply to Rusnak_322 :
Crashed the 125?...........they will highside you to the moon. There's that brief nano-second of patter out of the bike and next thing you know you're flying though the air like a migratory bird..........not that I know anything about this.
That trailer rocks; you're wife is awesome.
Tom1200 said:In reply to Rusnak_322 :
Crashed the 125?...........they will highside you to the moon. There's that brief nano-second of patter out of the bike and next thing you know you're flying though the air like a migratory bird..........not that I know anything about this.
That trailer rocks; you're wife is awesome.
No, the 125 was the wife's bike. I was on a R6 at the time. Then I got a Honda RS250. Wish I would have kept that, they are worth ridiculous amounts now.
While the kids were little, we had a rule that the fun cars had to have 4 seats. So I bought a 1977 911S which was great. Then I wanted a convertible, so we added a salvage title E46 M3 convertible which she promptly stole. Now that the kids are full size, that's not an issue.
But the real story is that she has granted us an unlimited 'safety budget'. Anything we (the kids and I) can argue is safety relevant is fair game. Makes for some interesting twisting of what adds safety. Those Pilot Sport 4S tires? Much more traction to help get out of a potential problem, so obviously a safety investment ;-)
Last Summer we took our annual drive from the East coast to the Midwest to visit my family and then vacation. We spent a few days in Nashville and on the trip home we stopped at the National Corvette Museum.
My wife saw me tabulating about what it would cost to order the color and equipment I would want. She said "as long as you don't try to replace my Jeep with it, it's fine...".
I ultimately decided not to order at that time (or since), but she's a keeper!
Rusnak_322 said:I was on a R6 at the time. Then I got a Honda RS250.
Good to know younger rid of the top heavy 4-stroke for a proper two stroke.
Your wife riding a RS125 makes her even more awesome.
I'm a cheap bastard...always talking myself out of things. My wife told me to get a Miata, a GTI, (saying "you know you always wanted them") and to bring the Imperial down from the the barn and have it restored into "driver" condition.
Tom1200 said:In reply to Rusnak_322 :
Crashed the 125?...........they will highside you to the moon. There's that brief nano-second of patter out of the bike and next thing you know you're flying though the air like a migratory bird..........not that I know anything about this.
That trailer rocks; you're wife is awesome.
You too eh? 40+ years of riding and the only bone I've broken was due to a RS125 highside. $60k damage to me, less than $200 to the bike. The RS125's I had were the best trackbikes I've ever owned.
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