Bigger savings, bigger umbrella

Dave's all about getting an umbrella for our table and chairs on the deck, and I can appreciate his enthusiasm.

I personally don't think they're all that cool, especially because it's going to end up being "Did you take the umbrella down?" "No, I thought you did," during a hail storm. And then it'll get moldy. If it doesn't make noise and it's somewhere I don't sit every day, I won't be compelled to clean it obsessively like, say, my bathrooms and kitchen.

That said, he called me at work to let me know he was going to buy an umbrella because they were ON SALE. And that means "NEVER will there be a sale on umbrellas EVER AGAIN SO BUY NOW." I talked him out of a red one (we have a blue house, seriously), a black one (hot) and other such lunatic color schemes. He settled on a khaki colored one.

Fine.

But this thing, it's huge. It dwarfs our table and chairs, so it looks like I took a regular umbrella to a Barbie patio set. It's that big.

"Does the umbrella look too big?"

"Um. Well, I guess we could fit the whole neighborhood underneath it," I said.

"Yeah."

"Of course I don't like that many people."

However, taking it back was a painful decision for Dave. He could get a smaller umbrella. But those were $16. This was $20. And the $16 ones were originally $25. The $20 one? It was $79. THINK OF ALL THE MONEY WE SAVED. And really, Erin, how can you not appreciate that kind of savings?

And that's when I rolled my eyes and Dave made the decision to take it back.