Dearest Rachel –
There’s a pair of rules for life that go like such: 1.) Don’t sweat the small stuff, and 2.) it’s all small stuff. And from your vantage point, that’s truer than any living human can grasp. Literally anything I tell you about is ‘small stuff,’ in the grand scheme of things, no matter how large any of it might seem from my perspective – but I will say that some seem smaller than others, for one reason or another.
For instance, I mentioned about our plans for yesterday in the morning, but while we spent something like four hours at the dealership – and Daniel did decide on a model he liked, which turned out to be something of a dark horse compared to what Will had initially thought he might be interested in – the trip wasn’t like the one I took for my own purchase, where I paid for it and brought it home that same day. Granted, part of this could be attributed to the fact that we hadn’t brought a checkbook with that much ready cash to pay for it, but that in turn was because we’d been advised to go with the financing option in any event, since there were discounts thrown in for doing so that exceeded whatever interest we might incur over the few months we expect to take to complete the payments.
At the same time, the fact that he preferred a Compass to the expected Cherokee (which had more technology than he was ready willing to deal with – in his words, the Compass “just felt more like a car”) meant that they didn’t have the exact specs that he wanted on the lot at that moment, and we would need to come back later. Which was fine with me, as it allows us opportunity to free up cash that we can bring with us as a “down payment,” leaving a nominal amount to pay off for the remaining few months in order to fulfill the discount terms. But it was a little disappointing to not have anything to show you yet for our efforts. I promise I’ll have them for you next week when we return.
Without a purchase to bring home and show to you (or the others – who may or may not be able to assemble tomorrow after church, after returning from a festival celebrating the paw-paw, of all things – or those reading over your shoulder), I might as well tell you about our other stop while we were down there in DuPage. It may be utterly insignificant, but when everything is, what difference does it make?
For one thing, it was as much at Daniel’s suggestion as anything else, which is impressive in its own right, as you would know. Sure, I’d fully intended to find a place to grab lunch while we were down there, assuming that there would be a fair number of places what we don’t have in our neighborhood, but I hadn’t made any decision as to where. And as Will would go back and forth between us and his manager, to try and determine what they could do to set us up with the car Daniel really wanted, he indicated that he was starting to get hungry. And remember, this is the kid who will go an entire day forgetting to eat, as “it’s not a priority” for him.
There are times when I so wish I could say that.
But this wasn’t one of those times, for either of us. So we each hauled out our phones, and scrolled through our map functions, each of with offered recommendations regarding restaurants nearby. Lo and behold, he found a place that offered pierogies within a six-minute walk from the dealership; not a drive (that would take two minutes), but a walk. Curiously, our maps indicated that it was by or inside the hardware superstore essentially next door, which was a bit perplexing, but at least Daniel had made a choice.
You might notice that Daniel was halfway through his meal before I even started in on mine; that’s not just because he was hungry (although he was) or enthusiastic about his meal (that, too), but that the guy manning the truck seemed to work on each dish we ordered one at a time. Daniel got his first, and by the time we got our potato slices as a side dish, everything else would have cooled off, so it didn’t make the photo.
I will mention that he went way overboard with the sauces on my sandwich; I could barely taste the actual ingredients. And while I didn’t mind their flavors, I did use the potatoes to mop up a lot of then before progressing much further; even then, they were pretty overpowering. I don’t know if that’s typical of the fare, or if he was just being generous.
Although, in terms of generosity, that sandwich (well, it hardly counts as one, being impossible to pick up without making a complete mess; I had to cut off portions at a time in order to eat any of it) certainly qualifies as a whole. I barely could make it through one half of it, and had Daniel’s help making a dent on the other half (surprise; a dozen pierogies still isn’t enough to feed a hungry Daniel), but still brought most of it home. Thank heavens they were served to us in takeout clamshells.
So while we didn’t quite accomplish what we meant to, we did have an experience we hadn’t planned on. And as small a thing as that is and was, it’s as much a thing to write home about as anything is. After all, it’s all small stuff, isn’t it, honey?
