Joseph valued at $1

When we got married we had two cars. I know. Two. We were living the true dream life. One manly beast of an explorer that Steve drove and would insist that I drive when the weather got bad and then a girl car that gets great gas mileage. I loved them both as they both had their purposes. The explorer got all of our furniture to the place we're at now while the civic has driven us wherever we needed to go, little complaint and loose on the wallet.

Right now we only have the civic while the explorer is off with Steven's brother. This means that I am in the car much more than I would prefer, driving not only myself to work, but Steven as well. And, may I tell a little secret here, but he doesn't need to be driven. He's got a bike and it takes all of 20 minutes to ride. It takes me 30 min driving no slower than 75 mph to get to my work. But, because I love him, and don't care if he's out in the sunshine, getting exercise, I drive him to and from work when I can. Which is often enough. And while I am venting, it takes me a round trip of 20 minutes to do all these service calls for him, which is time out of my day, and is costing us some unnecessary gas money. The only way I keep myself from screaming is knowing that he is earning the bulk of our expenses and if he wants to spend money on gas instead of whatever else a guy would want to spend money on (going out to eat, cookies, soda, Neilsons, steak, potatoes, did I mention food?) I guess I am not in the position to complain. Especially since he is always sure to keep me busy with money for crafties.

He knows how I feel about gas money and him getting exercise and so I wasn't caught off guard when he called from work yesterday and asked, "Hey, do you want to go to DI?" DI is my weakness. Cookie Monster loves cookies, Paula Dean loves cooking, I love thrift stores. I was imagining the great treasure I was going to find and caught myself as my knees started to weaken and realized, "You're bribing me for a ride home?"

After skirting the clothes and finding nothing but some prom dresses from the 90s I had to move on to the treasures. Browsing around, I always go up and down each isle, never skipping over anything. That's a lie. I always skip over the toy isle. There are always a dozen and a half kids in there, playing with various toys on the floor. And if toys are not being played with, they're strung all over the place and it would be considered a health hazard to venture down there for fear of tripping and breaking a neck.

And there she was. Ceramic Mary and baby Jesus, on a donkey. I think I have seen this before, but I couldn't be sure. For some reason it reminded me of Easter rather than Christmas so I picked her up. 50cents. Sweet deal. It kind of bothered me that there was no Joseph, but not enough to keep me from picking her up. In fact, it was almost more endearing without him. It made you wonder where he was, why this woman and baby were left to themselves with a donkey. Two steps further down the isle, there he was. Face down. Now I had a complete set. He was balding a little in this particular artist's interpretation, but I guess anyone would want Joseph to be a respectable 40 year-old instead of the young, spry guy he probably was. I carried them around, picking up a few more things and putting more things down. They stayed. We went to check out and Mary was 50cents just like I had seen on the tag. However, I hadn't checked Joseph over as well as maybe I should have. He was a whole $1! $1 for a balding man. He's lucky he has the name. I want to tell myself that if I had known that he was going to be more expensive than Mary and Baby Jesus that I still would have picked him up. But I am actually not so sure. There's just something about a young mother and a baby on a donkey that tears at your heart differently than if there's an aging man watching over them. Either way, I have my first easter decoration and it's 3 days until the big day.