When half-off is *still* an impossibility, let the dream go

One day on my way to swim practice when I was seven years old, sitting in the passenger seat of the family Volvo mouthing the lyrics to Dion's "Runaround Sue" and looking but not really looking for the faded turquoise water tower that indicated we'd almost reached our destination, for whatever reason I decided to pose to my father what to most people would be a typical child-to-parent question: "If you could have any car in the world, which would you choose?"

Instead of indulging my still nascent imagination, my very practical, very I'm-going-to-treat-you-as-if-you-were-just-a-tiny-colleague paternal unit turned to me and said, "Johanna, that kind of question, not to mention the answer thereto, are immaterial to the financial world in which I currently live."

"So...you don't like cars?" I asked, head tilted, confused.

"No, I do, and there is a car that if I had all the money in the world I would surely buy, but what you need to understand is that dwelling on these kinds of unrealistic 'if I had all the money in the world' or 'if I could meet anyone' kind of hypothetical situations are simply unhelpful. Unhelpful and unhealthy."

(pause)

"You see what I mean?"

"Okay...I guess I'll see you after practice."

Up until today, that conversation remained one of a scant few between my father and me to which I could point and with confidence say he, the pragmatist, and I, the romantic, would always have divergent approaches to life. When I saw this afternoon that my precious Sergio Rossi Misha open-toe t-straps had been marked down from $743.95 to $394, however, and realized even with that steep, this-never-happens discount, that they were not only still too expensive but also still at a beyond-my-wildest-wishlist-level price point, I began to wonder if the divergence I'd always attributed to personality might actually be an issue of maturity.

Just like my father felt it easier to live life without actually saying aloud "1964 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud drophead coupe" (a fact I finally got out of him in a moment of too-much-Pinot weakness last year) perhaps I too would find life a bit less depressing if I abstained from emotionally investing - likely the only kind of investing of which I'll ever be capable - in the kinds of "If I had a Sugar Daddy..." fare I often do.

A girl can dream, yes, but a girl who wants to write for a living also has a duty to face the freelance-fee facts.