A friend gave me a fake wood book case because she was down sizing and moving from a house into an apartment. This "free" book case has cost me over $35.00 in paint and I guess my friendship as she was upset to hear that I was painting it! Since the ugly thing was now mine, I thought I was free to do with it what I wanted but I guess not.

About six years ago, our Black Labrador, Luddy was getting up in years, and my wife, Bonnie, thought we should consider getting another dog. About this time, a church in our neighborhood was having their annual silent auction fundraiser, and we found out that one of the auction items was a Black Lab puppy. Bonnie went to see it, instantly fell in love, and announced that if I loved her, I would get her this puppy. Not really being schooled in shrewd auction tactics, she also announced to the entire congregation that she would have this puppy, no matter the cost.

Tha actual auction is still a blur to me, but I had my orders. In the aftermath, I tried to absorb the fact that we ended up paying $1000 for the dog. I still suspect there may have been an inside shill at work, but my mission was accomplished, my marriage was safe, and the money went to a good cause.

This obviously wasn't the cheap-skate part of the story. There's more.

A few months later, Luddy sadly went to that big Park in the sky, and we were left with just the puppy, who was now named Tobey.

As we were moping around the house, missing Luddy, Bonnie mentioned that, though it was a lot of trouble, she sort of missed having two dogs. "No more auctions", I said. "We can't afford any more auctions. And one dog is plenty."

Maybe a year later, after the yearning for a second dog had faded, a friend of ours who is involved in various dog rescue groups called to ask if we had room to foster a homeless stray Lab until they could locate a permanent place for him. "OK", we said, wanting to help, "we can do it for a few days."

Later that day, we met a big, dopey, teddy bear of a brown lab. He was dirty and sun-bleached, but was well-mannered and friendly, and seemed to like attention. He was young--not much more than a puppy himself. He and Tobey sniffed around each other, each finally deciding that the other wasn't much of a threat.

We decided boarder's temporary name would be Chip (Chocolate Chip). We cleaned him up, fed him, showed him the water bowl, and generally tried to make him feel at home.

Next, I have to mention something about our family habits. First, our dogs have always been house dogs. The live with us, sleeping on the bed with us if they can find the room and don't hog too much space. Second, I'm a night owl, while Bonnie is the quintessential early-to-bed, early-to-riser.

Bonnie went to bed that night, and almost immediately was joined by Chip, who quietly cuddled down right next to her, leaning on her. The next morning, in telling the story, Bonnie said she had fallen in love with Chip the previous night, and we were keeping him.

I know better than to argue with these kinds of declarations from Bonnie, so my rationalizing side went to work, and I finally came to look at it as a keen financial move: we would now have two dogs that only cost an average of $500 each!

This approach worked pretty well for me until Bonnie and Chip returned from the vet the next day with the news that Chip's homeless carousing had left him with a case of heartworm.

Heartworm is serious for any dog, but Chip was young and strong, so we opted for treatment. Almost $900 later, Chip is a healthy, lovable, dopey, cuddly teddy-bear. He and Tobey are inseparable.

As for the average cost of my dogs, I don't want to talk about it.

When I first got out of college in the mid 90s and was living in New York, I bought a 1975 Cadillac hearse from a small funeral home for $500. It was 23 feet, 6 inches long and weighed 6000 pounds. It was black with grey curtains. It had a 500 cubic inch engine that got about 7 to 8 miles per gallon. The seal around the windshield leaked when it rained, and the transmission leaked all the time.

A friend made one of those yellow suction-cup Baby-on-Board-type signs for the window that said, "Body on Board" instead. We found a casket key in the glove box. It also had the casket stops that plugged into the floor in the back to keep a casket from sliding around. I used them often to keep my personal stuff secure.

The car quickly turned into a money pit.

First I had to get it inspected. It failed miserably. It needed new tires, and the exhaust had so many holes in it that the emissions machine wouldn't even register. $1200 later I finally had an inspection sticker, but only because I hit the state maximum for inspection repair charges.

Then I had to get it registered. What I didn't know was that in the state of New York, hearses were by definition commercial vehicles, which cost several hundred dollars more to register. It apparently never occurred to them that someone might drive one as his personal car. Instead, I had to register it as a "Cadillac Suburban." It actually said that on the title.

I also had to sign a form swearing to install a back seat, since vehicles without back seats also had to be registered commercial. I found a van seat someone had thrown away on the side of the road and bolted it in to stay legal.

When I left New York, I managed to fit everything I owned in the back and drove it down to Tallahassee, FL. Shortly after arriving there, it developed a crack in the exhaust manifold that spewed hot exhaust gas on the brake lines and boiled them. Luckily nobody was in front of me when the brakes failed. It's somewhat disconcerting to find yourself rolling unexpectedly through a red light at a busy intersection in a 6000 pound boat that won't stop.

I bought the parts to fix it, but never did. It sat in the front yard of my rental house with grass growing around the tires for two years. A nest of wasps took up residence in the passenger door. But the story didn't end there.

My landlord finally got sick of seeing it and said to get it out of there or else, so I sold it for $250 to the owner of a liquor store. He worked on it right there in the front yard and got it running again. He bought it intending to turn it into a monster truck. But the last time I saw it, he was using it to deliver kegs to frat houses at Florida State. Apparently it was a big hit among the frat boys and attracted a lot of business.

I miss that old boat. I'll probably buy another some day. But next time I'll know that a $500 car is probably not really a $500 car.

After a long, hot, tiring trip to Washington, DC for Independence Day in 2007, my wife and I flew back home. Our flight was delayed due to weather and we ended up back at the airport at 1:30am. Rather than taking a cab home I insisted that we wait until the public transit trains started running at 5:00am so we could get home for $3 rather than $45. We slept in the airport until 5:00am and then took a train to a bus to get home...and we're still married!