Wives and the El Dorado Problem

[Ruminsky Van Drunkenberg]

This small piece I wrote describes how we salarymen who are not independently wealthy can scrape together the stash to buy the good stuff under the glares and suspicious eyes of our better halves. I wrote it specifically to address how I get $$ together for what my wife terms frivolties, after the guys in our club complained about how tough it is to get cash together to indulge their palates.

The opening paragraphs are as follows:

The El Dorado Problem is that pitiful state of affairs reached when a truly superior product comes on the shelf for you to buy….and you don’t have the cash because it’s just outside (or way outside) your price range. It comes from yours truly, who realized he had such a problem when attempting to buy the El Dorado 25 year old.

Our spouses mostly consider us as half-tamed hobos who, by dint of firm discipline, a smack or two and occasional love, can be tamed and house-broken from the vagabondage of our bachelor years (fifteen years with my significant other has not cured her of this delusion, which I am at pains to foster). And nowhere is this more clearly shown than in the beady-eyed, cold glare with which they double check everything we buy. And given how carefully they monitor our expenditure, it’s a real chore to pass off our toys not as wannabes or spur of the moment expenses we can casually shrug off, but as necessities.

However, my experience and anecdotal evidence suggests a few avenues we can explore to pretend we are doing mankind a service by buying the things we do. And this is the core of my essay that suggests how we poor shlobs could possible address the El Dorado Problem.

Now, if this appeals to you and you're smiling just a bit (as I did when writing it), please feel free to continue here:

http://www.liquorature.com/?page_id=557

Enjoy!

[leisure master]

Maybe I am just very lucky, but when I brought home a bottle of the ED25, my wife really started to give it to me about how stupid I must be to spend over $200 for a bottle of rum.

I proceeded to pull the bottle out of the box and open it right in front of her as she continued to loudly question whether I should ever be allowed to carry money again. I pulled down two of our rum sipping glasses and poured two samples.

She picked up her dram of the ED25, took one sip while giving me the hairy eyeball over the glass and then almost immediately said "nevermind, I get it and I take it all back"...

She later suggested I buy a second bottle when our first was running low.

...that's a girl you marry.

[Ruminsky Van Drunkenberg]

That's almost exactly what happened to me when I brought home the Appleton 30 and the English Harbour 25 on the same day...my furtive slinking around and guilty expression gave me away in a heartbeat, but after she tasted them, all was forgiven....I think.

[Edward Hamilton]

Both of you have forgiving wives, the best kind.

[RonJames]

1st, marry a caribbean queen like I did, failing that, ask leisure master if he has any single sister in laws. Only problem with this is that YOUR rum collection rapidly becomes OUR rum collection, even if you do the buying. My wife informed me that if we both IMBIBE than it is OUR rum collection

2nd, I always bring up areas that we men are cheap on. My favorite is to compare wardrobe expenditures. Theres some years that I haven't spent a dime...which I feel safe to say does not happen for my wife. I then explain how I transfer that part of the budget over to the rum fund

Good topic, makes me think. Now explaining it to my wifes mother and 3 aunts...thats a difficulty I still haven't explained.

[Ruminsky Van Drunkenberg]

I like the idea of comparing cheapness, but alas, this doesn't work with my spouse, who is ten times more thrifty than I am. The last (and only) time I tried this excellent notion because I thought she was shopping too much, she pulled out five pairs of designer shoes, three dresses and two blouses, and it came up to less than the sum of my last two bottles of rum. I dropped the idea with unseemly haste and told her how proud I was, and never mentioned it again :-)

[RonJames]

lololol, there is a certain amount of wisdom in knowing that you've lost the battle and are better off doing a proper retreat and saving face isn't there? Done the same thing myself a couple of times.

[Ruminsky Van Drunkenberg]

Originally Posted by RonJames

lololol, there is a certain amount of wisdom in knowing that you've lost the battle and are better off doing a proper retreat and saving face isn't there? Done the same thing myself a couple of times.

I call it a "strategic redeployment" myself.