Don't Buy What You Can't Return

Some men mistake a glossy photograph for a guarantee. They are wrong.

I have watched more than one fool in this county make a mess of himself by confusing speed with sense. Herbert Tucker bought one of those newfangled gas cookstoves thinking it'd spare him the trouble of chopping wood. Next thing I knew, the kitchen was on fire and that stove was a twisted heap of metal sitting in the yard looking sorry. That's what happens when you rush at something shiny without stopping to ask what it costs to run.

Now there are men, and I gather not just in Harrow Corners, who have handed over their life savings to strangers on the other side of a screen, believing they were purchasing a wife the way you'd order a replacement part from a catalog. What they got was a fraud wrapped in a half-truth, and the only thing they have to show for it is a lighter wallet and a hard education. I am not unsympathetic. Lonely is a real condition, and there are people who make a profession out of finding it and picking its pockets.

But sympathy only stretches so far before it runs into accountability. You do not hand your life savings to someone you have never met in a country you have never visited on the strength of a photograph and a promise of frugality. That is not romance. That is a man so eager to close the deal that he skipped every step between hello and the altar. You don't rush a good thing. Old Man Thompson has been courting Mrs. Henderson for near on fifteen years. He is not in a hurry, and neither is she. They are letting it cook slow and steady, like a pot roast on a Sunday. When he finally proposes, it will be after they have come to a mutual understanding, not after handing a stranger a pocketful of cash and hoping for the best.

I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking I'm just jealous because I haven't got a husband. Well. I've buried two, and I'd have a third if he hadn't up and left for parts unknown one night after a particularly spirited argument over whose turn it was to butter the toast. But that's neither here nor there. The point is, I've learned to trust my gut, and when it has steered me wrong, that's what bourbon and a good cry are for.

The fruitcake I baked in 1954 is still making the rounds through Harrow Corners. It comes back to me every Christmas, regular as weather, and I send it along again. Nobody eats it. Nobody pitches it. It keeps going because some things, made with care and a little stubbornness, outlast the people who doubted them. A promise is the same way. It is only as good as the person keeping it, and no glossy photograph changes that arithmetic.

I recall when the lake gave the Hendersons' boy back, and how that changed the way folks around here think about patience and waiting. Some things come back when they're ready. Some things don't come back at all. The trick is knowing which situation you're in before you've already spent everything you had.

The year the county fair ran nine days longer than it was scheduled and nobody could leave taught us something too. Strange times come. You make do. You keep your wits, you watch who's watching you, and you do not let the strangeness talk you into a decision you'd be ashamed of on an ordinary morning.

That is the whole of it, really. Not the quick fix. Not the flashy promise. Trust takes time to build and about thirty seconds to wreck, and once it's gone, you are not getting it back for a photograph and a wire transfer. Take your time. Let things cook. And do not gamble what you cannot afford to lose, because the house always knows something you don't, and it is not in the habit of feeling bad about winning.

Some messes can be cleaned up. Some just teach you to read the label first.

Keep your counsel and your porch salted. -- Aunt Dot
Got a problem worth answering? Write me: [email protected]