Something of value

How I love this son of mine. His darling wife took the photo and texted it to me. My boy is very upset with me for not having asked him to accompany me to the Apple Store to buy my new laptop. He believes he could have guided me to a choice that would have met my needs for significantly less than I spent. He is also chagrined that I did not ask my niece's husband Grant, who is an exec at Apple, to apply his lovely discount on my behalf. "What were you thinking?" my son wanted to know. "I was thinking that Grant is a new dad and he's busy with little Harper right now," I said. "He only had to tap a few buttons on his phone!" my son exclaimed.

Indeed, when my niece Leisa read my last post and learned that I had bought a new laptop, she FaceTimed me at once. "Why didn't you call us?" she wailed. She and Grant, who was sitting next to her on their couch in Dallas, agreed with my son that I spent more than I had to. Grant was already busy tapping said buttons on his phone. "Okay," he said, "I've reserved the MacBook Air for you if you want to exchange the MacBook Pro you got. You have ten days to decide." He said that once I paid, he could get the Air delivered to my door that very day, and that I wouldn't need to return the Pro till I had safely migrated all my data to the Air, at which point I could reset the Pro to factory settings and get a full refund. 

They all say I bought more processing power than I will ever need, and they are probably right. I did the same thing with my last laptop, despite my son telling me I didn't need that much memory, and so on. But you know, that laptop ended up giving me ten good years, so no regrets there. The way I see it, this is my work, and I'd like to know I don't have to worry about maxing out on storage or lethargic processing speeds or batteries overheating or anything else. 

Apparently I can make whole movies on the machine I bought. "I just might do that, then," I joked to my concerned young people, who were still lamenting the savings I was failing to realize. "Apart from the money, is there any reason for me not to keep the Pro," I asked them. No, none at all, they all said. It's a fantastic machine. 

Later, I asked my husband what he thought, whether I should consider switching to the cheaper but still excellent laptop. "Well, the kids all want to feel as if they can contribute something of value to you," he said, "and that's why they're all so insistent." I told him his was a more compelling argument for changing than the one about me saving money. "That's because I know you," he shrugged. "I know that once they swipe that card you almost superstitiously refuse to care that the money is gone." He has often rolled his eyes at this attitude of mine, so he didn't bother this time.

The upshot: I have decided not to make a change. All my data is already successfully migrated to the new machine, everything is working fine, and maybe this bad boy will last me another ten years. But at least I now understand to thank the kids for their loving concern, and let them know how much I appreciate them looking out for me.