Logical Consequences

So, last night a post appeared on one of my homeschooling email lists: FREE STOVE, glass cooktop, works great.  When Larry came home, I told him, "You need to pick up a free stove tomorrow evening."

"What's wrong with it?" asked my ever-optimistic spouse.

"Nothing! They're selling the townhouse and they are upgrading the stove so it matches the refrigerator."

"She SAYS nothing is wrong with it. I'm going to drag that thing all the way home and we'll be stuck with TWO broken stoves, instead of one," Larry insisted.

"Look," I said, "if this stove works, it will save us about $30,000."

"What?"

"If I have to go out and buy a new stove instead, I'm going to end up deciding to get a gas one.  Which means that we'll need to pay for extending the gas line from the furnace room to the kitchen."

"Okay," said Larry, "that gets us to about $1200 total, what with the cost of the stove plus the gas line. Where's the other $28,800 I'm supposed to save?"

"If I'm going to spend all that money on extending the gas line, we have to think about whether we really want the stove where it is now.  And then, if I am going to move the stove, I want to move the sink so that I can do dishes and look out the window at the same time.  And if I am going to move the sink and get a new counter, I want to extend the counter a little further out, so that we can have a larger work area.  And if we extend the counter, we're going to need new cabinets.  And if we buy new cabinets, I want them to be a natural wood color, instead of painted white, because those are too hard to keep clean and I'm tired of repainting them.  And if we change the cabinets to a natural wood color, they won't go with our gray-tiled floor, so we need to change that, too."

Really, I don't know why Larry couldn't figure all that out himself.  Maybe he was just tired.  He sure LOOKED tired by the time I finished explaining things.  Getting older, I guess, poor guy...