I've spent years traveling for work. While I don't travel nearly as much as I used to, I did travel all the time. There were times I was away from home for months at a time. I learned a lot about myself during that time and I learned a lot about the boundaries of my relationship with my wife and kids. Namely that at 35000 feet and 2000 miles away from home I have little input into the day to day happenings at home.
In 2006 I bought a large Toyota Tundra loved it. When I left the lights on at the airport one week the battery was dead before I returned two weeks later. I used the airport service crew to help jump my truck and they managed to fry the entire electrical system on the truck. A more adequate description might be to say they burned out the electrical system on the truck to the point that the inside of the truck filled with noxious chemical smells from the melting plastic coatings on the electrical wires. I had the truck towed and repaired but it never worked the same again and nine months later I traded it in for a brand new Toyota Venza.
The Venza is a “crossover” vehicle. Technically it’s a station wagon. But it is a really nice car and had lots of room for our kids and their stuff. It had a V6 and lots of power. One of the best things about it was that it had satellite radio built in and I didn’t have to replace the radio to get it. This was the first car I bought that had it built in. But it also had room for two large car seats and could hold a double stroller, two diaper bags, snacks, coats and suitcases.
But after a week I was told that I would not be allowed to drive the car to the airport and park it for weeks at a time at the airport. That my wife had decided that she would be taking my car and I would be allowed to drive her vehicle and park it at the airport for as long as I liked. She drove an older Jeep Liberty with a Betty Boop tire cover on the back. My car had a good sound system. Hers did not. My car had a great wheel base and a smooth ride. Hers did not. My car had great options and leather seats. Hers did not. Hers was a base model. Mine was not even close.
And hers had just become mine. Let face it. A Jeep Liberty was not a meant to be a man’s vehicle. It just wasn’t envisioned that way when it was designed. And the tire cover didn’t add to the masculinity.
Time passed but the story didn’t end there.
Later while I was traveling for work my wife decided to embrace her inner soccer mom and wanted a minivan. I have to tell the truth. I was excited about this. She had resisted the minivan thing for a while but this gave me something to I could tease her about. There is nothing like giving your wife a hard time for choosing to do something she swore she would never do … and I would not have to drive the Liberty any longer. I’d get my car back. So we purchased a Toyota Sienna. It is a really nice van. It wasn’t fully loaded but it was definitely nice.
She liked the van but there was a hidden had a problem. It turns out that my wife has a stronger intrinsic fight or flight response from minivans than I imagined. And on an unconscious, albeit passive aggressive, level she mentally and emotionally rejected the new bright red minivan that she wanted and picked out herself. The rejection started simple enough as a minor suggestion that driving a large minivan was awkward and she was not 100% comfortable with it. It culminated in a series of parking lot accidents that finally resulted in the entire rear bumper of the van being ripped off.
The end result?
I had to give up my car again, pay to fix the minivan and then I got to drive the soccer mom minivan for a while. When you travel you don’t get a lot of say in what happens at home when you are not there but I didn’t want her driving the van any more than she wanted to.
A few months later I asked my wife if she would like to go on vacation for a few weeks. She thought that might be nice and asked what I had in mind. I told her I wanted to drive to Yellowstone and a few other places staying in hotels along the way and driving into the attractions daily. She thought that might be nice and would look at some options. My work that week got busy and I didn't talk to her for a bit.
A few days later I got an email with a mapped route and a short couple sentences about not wanting to go to the national parks while staying at hotels. She suggested renting an RV instead.
I asked how much the RV rental would cost and a few hours later was told that the rental would run about 15,000 plus fuel costs.
I was busy. Instead of sending a lengthy email reply, I used my phone to send an text message to her reading something like, "for that price we might as well buy one." Short, simple, mildly sarcastic. Basically, “Are you nuts?” I had hotel points to burn as well as status. That meant I figured we could stay in a nice hotel and have someone cook a hot breakfast each morning for free. This paid vacation should only cost me the gas to get there.
The shorthand are you nuts question was apparently misinterpreted.
I started getting emails with links to new and used class A RVs for sale in Texas. On my next trip home we went and looked at RVs. We both decided that buying an RV that cost as much as a house was nutty. So we discussed fifth wheel trailers. Both her parents and mine had them and they were cheaper than an RV. On another weekend we took an afternoon and looked at those as well. Time went by and I resolved myself that I wouldn't be headed on a longer vacation that year anyway because my work hours had changed.
Then I received an email. My wife and parents had decided that we would buy their old camper and they would drive it down to Texas for us. The email was both expository and informative. However, at the end of the email was a question asking if that was ok with me. Rereading the email I decided that the question was somewhat rhetorical. Like when your wife asks where you want to go for dinner. There are a limited number of options that are acceptable. Choose the right place because she has already determined the correct answer.
My parents brought the camper down to us and we coordinated and got a storage parking spot for it and started paying the storage fees for my brand new camper. If you have been following along please note my family still owned a minivan and a station wagon. Neither of which could haul, pull, nor push a fifth-wheel camper very far.
So I started making plans.
I thought that this would be a cool opportunity for me to get a new vehicle and get a big new diesel truck. Nothing says “this is a guy’s vehicle” like the roar of the engine in a truck you need a ladder to get into. My wife let me go look at new trucks for a few weekends. Then she told me that we were not going to pay for a new truck and I would have to get a used one. That seemed ok to me even if I was a little disappointed. I hadn’t purchased a used car since my first car in college so a little piece of me died inside. I was sad in a way that you can only be after playing with a $55,000 toy and then having someone tell you that you cant take it home.
We looked around for a used truck but didn’t find anything that inspired me and to tell the truth I sort of hoped that I would still get a new truck somehow. But the truth was I hadn’t found one that I liked anyway anything we looked at new or used.
There were a lot of conversations with the extended family about trucks. My wife’s parents had had several large trucks and were a good source of information. I had decided to buy a diesel engine because they would pull a trailer better. My father-in-law approved. My mother-in-law had a more nuanced response. When it was all said and done I had a number of things I wanted in a truck and the vast majority of those things my family didn’t think I needed. We decided on a Dodge as that would allow me to park the truck in my in-laws’ drive way. Anything else might result in us having to park down the street when we visited so as not to have them shamed by their son-in-law.
It also turns out that in 2006 Dodge trucks the engine changed and a less full efficient engine was released. Even the newer engines were not as fuel efficient as the older engines. My wife and her mother had a number of conversations about this. My wife and I had a series of debates on the topic too. My mother-in-law and I had a series of conversations where she talked and I listened. So on this and a number of topics I lost the debate. One evening I was sitting in the back yard talking to my father-in-law after losing the debate yet again and asked if he had been listening the conversations. He had. I asked him to clarify for me, when buying a large truck even the government didn’t bother tracking the fuel economy on, because you were purchasing it for the sole purpose of hauling a large trailer, if the fuel economy was supposed to be the defining feature. He laughed and said no and that I was exactly right. He said he didn’t really track the fuel economy of his truck either but that my mother-in-law did. He confirmed what I suspected and that was that my mother-in-law would complain if the fuel cost averaged five cents more per fill-up. He then told me not to worry about it anyway because I had already lost the argument. The other thing I was assured would happen is that I would be getting a 2WD truck because 4WD trucks got less mileage too. I argued with everyone that we needed a 4WD but my fate was sealed before I married into the family. I think my father-in-law knew this about the women in his family but I was just starting to understand.
So I got on a plane and went to work again. My wife continued looking for a used, new to me, truck and finally found one. She also found a way to sell my minivan while I was gone. I was told on Wednesday that when I got home that weekend I needed to go to the CarMax dealership and sign some forms and write them a check to sell the van.
Let that sink in. I wrote them a check for the privilege of them buying my van. In return I no longer had a van payment to make. I signed the forms and returned home for the evening being without a car. The next morning my wife and I got into my car that she had claimed as her own and drove four hours to a used truck dealership to look at a truck she had picked out online. She had also gone to the bank while I was out of town and gotten a loan complete with a check for the cost of the truck. I hadn’t seen this truck but it met the families seal of approval and was made in the right month of 2006. During the ride to Houston I learned more about this truck. It was 2WD, a 2006, a fleet vehicle, and might need a little work. This truck was custom made to my mother-in-law’s expectations.
When you drive four hours (each way) to buy a vehicle it turns out you don’t leave empty handed. We paid $21,000 for the truck with over 120K miles on it. Then replaced the tires, suspension in the front and back, bought a new key, replaced the entire door lock, put in a spray-in liner and did a number of other things totaling near $8,000. My father-in-law did a bunch of the work or it would have cost even more. A year later I eventually got the trailer hitch put in for another $1500.
I noticed a number of things. No engine heater. No rear window defogger. No 4WD. No satellite radio. None of the niceties that you find in a personal truck. This was definitely a fleet vehicle that had been driven hard.
The first week I tried to embrace the truck and hand washed it as well as detailed the inside. In the process I sprayed cold water on the windshield on a day when it was really freaking hot outside. The windshield cracked as steam rose off of it after I sprayed the water on. The only word I could think as I stared at it was “beautiful.”
This wasn’t the truck I would have bought if I had had any say in the matter.
A few months later while I was away at work again my wife decided that she wanted a bigger yard and a bigger house for the kids and the dog. I had mentioned moving at some point in the past and we had looked at land and houses off and on in Texas but decided that the dirt was slightly overpriced in Texas. My wife mentioned maybe moving to Iowa and having my mother look at houses in Iowa. My text message back to her on the phone was “don’t have my mother looking at houses unless you are committed to moving.” I figured that it would be a while because she had to think this over. The next message I received was from my mother saying that she was going to look at houses the next day and how excited she was. The following day I got a text message saying my wife had put her notice in at work. Two weeks later my wife flew to Iowa to look at houses. I guess she was committed.
We moved to Iowa and I was now making two house payments.
My new truck didn’t start in the winter and wouldn’t drive in snow and ice. Well, it wouldn’t drive in a straight line anyhow. I tried it. This truck was never supposed to leave Texas. I even had to buy a third car so I had something to drive in the winter.
Over the years I have gotten the truck stuck a few times. Twice in my own back yard on wet grass. Once I almost got it stuck in some wet clay at the county landfill. And the last time it got stuck while I was an hour from home with my wife, father, and a friend. I had to call my mother to come pull my truck out of the mud. That’s embarrassing especially when you have to call her neighbor and explain it to them first because her phone didn’t work.
I haven’t been traveling for work nearly as much for a few years now but I still reflect on the decisions I didn’t get to make when I wasn’t home. When you are not there you get less say in what happens when you are gone.
If you are not careful your family might pack up the house and sell it while you are gone as well.
On a positive note? I traded in the truck a couple weeks ago. She test drove it and drove it home before I ever sat in the driver’s seat.
I picked it out. She let me.