Do I at Least Get to Wear a Cool Hat?

Commodore (noun) – an officer in temporary command of a squadron.

I’ve been a “Commodore” in the Bad Way before, more than once, through every fault of my own. What I am referring to of course is having more than one boat. In the past at least twice I have somehow convinced my wife that we’ve found the perfect boat NOW, and we don’t want to take the risk of missing it and enduring the dreaded “boatless” condition where we’ve sold the Old Boat and not yet found the Dream Boat. So far, what inevitably happens is the closing on the Dream Boat arrives long before the Old Boat has become someone else’s Dream Boat. I am two for two on this, with the pre-Evenstar vessel actually taking an uncomfortably long time to sell for less than I’d wanted.

I strongly advise against this situation BTW, both from a financial perspective and that of marital harmony.

I am a bit of a day dreamer, and I tend to some times speak my thoughts aloud when I shouldn’t. Thoughts like “wow, that would be a COOL little powerboat to zip around the bay on with the kids and go fishing” when we already have a rather largish sail boat. Although it does not, technically, “zip” anywhere. While only semi-serious (because I know in some deep reptilian portion of my brain this makes no financial sense, especially with an eye on cruising some day), on more than one occasion I have been chastised because I “already have enough boats.” Or worse, I already have “Too Many Boats.” That makes me think of the Emperor of Austria explaining to Mozart what is wrong with Figaro in the film Amadeus…”too many notes”…however it is much more chilling from my spouse.

What brings this meandering rumination about is the acquisition of yet another boat, specifically a new Optimist dinghy for my daughter to race next summer. In my mind I have one, and only one boat – Evenstar. However when you start counting the little boats it starts getting silly – you’ve got the inflatable dinghy, the Skimmar, and currently three Optis. Those last really shouldn’t count to the total though since one is being donated shortly to GBSA and the other two are for the kids. So is the Skimmar, I can’t fit in that thing. In my mind that’s like counting the kids bicycles as cars. And the inflatable is really just part of the big boat, right?

Unfortunately my wife counts boats differently than me.

I point to her partner who literally DOES have a fleet of boats for his own purposes, but to no avail. He doesn’t get a cool hat to wear either.