Farmers Insurance — $503.31
Six month’s worth of auto insurance on The Husband’s Subaru Impreza.

Amazon.com — $42.03
I’d been holding off on some of these purchases but decided to bit the bullet and order them now — especially since they qualified for free shipping. There’s been some discussion and questioning of whether The Son might have Asperger’s Syndrome. Further investigation is warranted.

In the meantime, whether he has Asperger’s or not, I felt that How Rude!: The Teenagers’ Guide to Good Manners, Proper Behavior, and Not Grossing People Out* might both be a big hit and hopefully an effective subliminal way of reinforcing some of the manners that seem to be leaking from The Son’s teenaged brain. I also bought Freaks, Geeks & Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence* for the self-proclaimed Geek/Dork in my life (yes, The Son).

And for myself I bought Look Me In The Eye: My Life with Asperger’s* because even if The Son doesn’t have Asperger’s I’ve heard this is a great book and a must-read.

[Side note: The Sister with connections to Asperger’s parents called just after I’d made my Amazon purchases. She was excited because she’d just heard about something called “Executive Functioning” and thought it warranted further investigation in regard to The Son.]

Wendy’s — $3.50 (approx.)
I can’t find the receipt right now but I remember thinking that it was really close to what The Husband spent last night feeding The Daughter. I want to cut down on our “dining” expenses and told The Daughter that she needed to come eat dinner at home tonight after practice. I tried telling The Son the same thing but I sprung it on him at the last minute and realized that it was unfair. He usually spends the better part of Wednesday thinking about where he wants to stop for dinner after his orchestra rehearsal. So she got dinner out last night; he got dinner out tonight. Practicing some restraint with our spending gradually is probably the better way to go anyway, right? I mean how often are those starvation diets successful? Not very often. Slow and steady wins the race.

* affiliate link

Sometimes it’s called “robbing the cradle.” Another euphemism is “May-December” relationship. My usual way of stating the age difference between The Husband and myself is to say that he is “significantly older than I am.”

The fact is that my husband is 29 years, 2 months, and 25 days older than I am. I usually just round it up to a 30-year age difference. I’m 43; he’s 72.

So, yes, I am a lot younger than my husband. And yes, I’m his second wife. And since my goal with this blog is to be as transparent as possible without compromising our anonymity, I will even admit that at one point I was “the other woman.” But I am not a trophy wife and I can prove it.

Fact No. 1 — I am not a trophy
Fact No. 2 — He is not a trophy winner.

Ask anyone who knows me and they will confirm fact #1. Nothing about me screams (or even whispers) trophy! in the typically understood definition of a trophy wife. I am as flat-chested as they come. I don’t “do” make-up; I have no interest in clothes or baubles or purses or shoes; I pay no attention whatsoever to my hair; I keep my nails short, never use polish, and have never had a manicure.

The Husband, as I stated, is not a trophy winner. He’s no Daddy Warbucks, he’s got wrinkles that resemble the Grand Canyon, and unless baby-blue leisure suits make a tremendous comeback, he’s never going to grace the cover of GQ.

I’m not completely lacking, however, in trophy wife qualifications. Trophy wives are often seen as being high-maintenance. I am high-maintenance. I’m not even ashamed to admit it anymore. Sing it loud and sing it proud: I am high-maintenance! I require a good bit of attention and affection. My feelings are too easily bruised and I can’t hear “I love you” often enough.

I do possess one other trophy-wife qualification: I have expensive tastes. But instead of coveting big furs, flashy cars, and overpriced jewelry, my eyes glaze over when I think about electronic gadgets.

Imagine how I’d look with a new Sony camcorder cradled in my palm! The only way to top that look would be to add a top-of-the-line Nikon SLR with a 300mm telephoto lens draped around my neck. Wouldn’t that Bose SoundDock system accessorize beautifully with my white Nano?

I dream about making the switch from PCs to Mac, getting each child one of those incredibly cool and ultra-portable MacBook laptops. Naturally, I’d have the new 24″ 2.8GHz iMac with 500gb hard drive. Our existing Mac Mini would be perfect for The Husband and I’d hook us all up to an Airport Extreme-driven wireless network.

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the field of networkable external hard-drives — imagining the ability to store all of our music, photo, video, and document files in one place and being able to access them from any computer in the house, that’s the stuff of wet dreams!

My latest guiltily-secretly-coveted gizmo is a flat-panel TV. Something that we could install on the wall and pull out and swing around according to where viewers are sitting. When not in use it would hang unobtrusively on the wall looking like some sleek, new-age, ultra modern piece of art. I could get rid of the big black box that sits in the corner on the ancient wooden wheeled stand along with the DVD player and the VHS player and all the cables and the wires and the dust. I’m still trying to decide, should I go Plasma or an LCD? And what about size: 42″ is a probably bit excessive, don’t you think? Maybe 37″?

A girl can dream, can’t she? Dreaming is free.

My husband thinks I’m the perfect type of trophy wife — my head might be in the clouds but my feet are planted firmly on the ground. I might dream of a life of electronics luxury but in the real world I’m perfectly content with my 4.0 megapixel point-and-shoot Nikon, our 20-year-old 27″ color TV, and my 4gb first-generation Nano iPod.