My wife won the lottery. Two hundred thousand dollars. Uncle Sam took half. She said, "I want a new car. Go buy me a new car."
So I took the checkbook and bought a brand new Honda Accord for $30,000. When I arrived home my wife said, "I didn't want an Accord. I want an SUV."
On the way back to the dealership, an accident occurred. I escaped with my life but the car was a total loss.
I still had the checkbook so I wrote a check for $40,000 and took home a nice, new Dodge Durango. I was so pleased with myself.
But my wife was not. She said, "The Durango is too small and I don't like the color red."
So I turned around and took it back to the dealer. I asked for my money back but he whipped out the magnifying glass and pointed out the small print: "absolutely, under no circumstances can you get a refund."
"Besides," said the salesmanager, "we've already spent the money and we can't take a new car in trade. It's just policy."
So I drove the Durango to the Ford dealership and on the way was rearended by a large truck. The Ford dealership gave me $10,000 in trade and I wrote a check for $40,000 more for the last of the new Ford Excursions.
I drove the Excursion home. Finally my wife was happy. "Now let's go buy the boat," she said.
"Sorry, honey," I said. "We're out of money."
So we have this giant SUV and we can't afford to put gas in it, and we have nothing to pull behind it.
But, we do have an SUV that cost $100,000 and in three years will be worth less than $20,000. And as a compensating note, I can haul a ton of groceries with it which helps save the cost of gasoline to get to the grocery store in the first place.
Now if only we could find another lottery to win.