The World According To Ben Part 5 ..Our Poet Supreme Ponders Fullfilling Long Overdue Car Lust Invol

“Horns”(Free-Meter Rhyme)

Is it ever OK to be self-indulgent? To splurge on something wild, something fulgent? To—after much meditation—toss away dull care? To seize the how, the when and the where And make of them a moment beyond compare? To accept a dare? I’ve no real desire to gamble. One could end up in clover. Or deep in painful brambles. But still…why just amble Aimlessly through life when one can dance? When one can take a little chance? When one can enjoy an admiring glance Or two?

This will be something new. To go from admiring to (hopefully) admired. To go from sensibly shoed to whitewall tired. To mix how I invest with what I love, And to do it without a righteous shove In the solar plexus Or a sharp violation of my emotional nexus. This is much ado about buying an antique, But there’s this old self-guilt trip—I know whereof I speak— That has to be wrestled to the ground. That has to be convinced I’m not being profound In my abject frivolity. It’s a constant dilemma that partially defines “me.” But enough of this emotional debris— It all boils down to “We’ll see.” I may get to the desk and choose not to sign, Or I may put it all on the dotted line. One way or another, I expect I’ll be fine. Just fine.

Verse-Case Scenario, LLC 2016

Today, I may or may not fulfill a dream and purchase (with Jean, of course) an investment-grade Sixties-vintage automobile. It all depends on how I feel emotionally/psychologically when we go to the seller to write the check.

I’d say “Wish me luck” but I don’t know what luck I should wish for. This is not a spur-of-the-moment thing. We’ve been contemplating other investment options for some time and recently moved a nice chunk of change out of our portfolio specifically for the flexibility to choose exactly what we want to do financially rather than let some faceless somebody (or some even more faceless circuit boards) determine it for us.

But all that said—and despite the fact that while I was raised Lutheran, my parents were rock-ribbed emotional Calvinists—I just don’t know if this is a trigger I can pull. I find myself swirling down an Anabaptist black hole of thou-shalt-nots. It’s driving me more than a little nuts on a day that I’ve anticipated excitedly for most of my life.

Stay tuned.

(P.S.: I’m writing this while listening to “Evolution,” the new CD by ace jazz organist Dr. Lonnie Smith. If you have any taste for jazz at all, check it out. Pure fireworks!)