Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Often, a seemingly illogical action has logic when something else is in play. One way to learn of what else is in play is to ask.

I have a yellow shirt. Someone gave this to me a few years ago. I hate the yellow shirt because I think the color is awful. I wear the yellow shirt almost every weekend.

Let’s look at these two items one after the other:

1. I hate the yellow shirt.
2. I wear it almost every weekend.

How do I reconcile 1. and 2.? Simple, if I wear the shirt often, it will wear out, and I will throw it away. The hated yellow shirt will be gone.

This makes sense if you accept something else:

I don’t throw away clothes until they are worn out.

This last item, my frugality (a.k.a., being cheap), makes sense to me, but may be seen as silly to many.

This entire situation is an example of something that seems to have no explanation having a logical explanation if there is another item in play. Hence,

if a person is cheap, they will wear a hated shirt often.

There is a big danger in this. My wife might think that I love that color yellow and replace the hated shirt soon after it is worn out and discarded. It would be easy for her to misinterpret my actions. I hope to prevent this by telling her often why I wear the hated shirt. She always replies with, “just throw it away. It was a gift, you didn’t spend a penny on it, and you won’t be wasting money by trashing it.”

There is much right in her words. Maybe one day…