The news that I had decided to buy a car caught Mom Tina more by disbelief than delight. She looked at me disapprovingly and asked if I was ready, already😏. ‘Is that how someone, your own mother, should react to big news like this?’ I thought in disappointment.
“I think I am, I have been planning for it for some time now”. I said cautiously, with a considerable emphasis on planning- to pass the message that I had thought about it; and slightly less emphasis on think- to leave some room for her opinion. But Tina is not a woman to leave you in the ‘I think’ zone. In an attempt to convince me otherwise, she tabled all the other options where I could use my money, challenged me to consider investing the cash instead and maybe get the car when I had a stream of other incomes, presented the challenges that come with owning a car and started telling me the story of how her own husband had only gotten his yellow Peugeot when they were at a comfortable place financially. I zoned out; with my left palm unable to make a choice between presenting itself to my mouth for nail-biting or scratching my now itchy forehead. They say that the two types of people that you cannot advise are 1. ‘A woman in love’ and 2. ‘a man with his money’…But have they met a woman with money who thinks she is already in love with how she intends to spend that money? I doubt it!
Eventually, when I could not pretend anymore, I took a long breath and cut her short…”Moooom, I was just telling you that I am buying a car…not asking you if I can buy it’! And that ended there- with a shocked mother who had just discovered that it is like she had lost a daughter to financial shortsightedness and a daughter who felt that she knew better.
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