The New/Old Keyboard

My (Anna's) husband is a geek, a coveted title he enjoys having earned, like a badge of honor.

Don't get me wrong, I like technology as much as the next person (can you say iPhone), but I'm nowhere near geek status. So, you should have seen the look on my face when I walked into our office and noticed an old, ugly, bisque-colored keyboard in front of his beautiful, white iMac. I asked, "What is this?" He responded with excitement, "It's a superior keyboard! It's the Apple Extended Keyboard II and it has mechanical key switches." (Translation: The new/old keyboard is not only ugly, it's also loud).

And get this, he bought a $20 adaptor to make the ugly thing work! Yes, my sweet, smart, cute, funny, geeky husband actually spent money on a new/old keyboard when he had a gleeming white one that matched his iMac. A year ago, a purchase like this could have caused a bit of a spat between us love birds. You see, Brent is in medical school and I'm an adjunct professor. That $20 could have been a night at the movies, a near full gas tank, a happy hour with friends, the list goes on...

It was just this type of thing that made us find a new solution for money about a year ago. Now, we have what we call "allowance." We each get a set amount of money per week to spend on whatever we please. No questions asked. No bickering. No sqaubbles over money for us anymore! Sometimes we separately save our allowance for something bigger that we've been dreaming of. Sometimes we pool our allowance and get something we can enjoy together that might otherwise be out of our budget.

When I first saw the new/old keyboard I thought, "what a waste!" And then I smiled and remembered how much I love his geekiness. And, even more, our allowance.