Impulse Buys & My Engineer

Technically speaking, in order to be a full fledged Engineer, you first have to pass the 'FE' (Fundamentals of Engineering) to become an 'EIT' (Engineer in Training), then you have to have a certain amount of experience and finally, pass the Professional Engineer test. Jason passed the FE on his first try, right before he graduated from ASU. The PE, however, not so much. It's an 8 hour test that is only offered twice a year. If you don't pass, you have to wait six months to try again. Jason has been working for the same Civil Engineering firm for about 10 years and could work circles around most of the guys he took the test with. In practice, engineering comes naturally to him. But we all know our career performance is no way an indication of our ability to take a test. Jason took the exam again last October for the fifth time and we found out the week before Christmas (yes, you have to wait two months for the results) that he passed. We were both elated! Seriously, ELATED. I just wanted to hug him and squeeze him and kiss him and scream. I did all of the above. The excitement still hasn't worn off. In addition to the obvious reason we're excited - more career opportunities - there are other reasons too:

• It's not cheap! Neither are all the books!
• It used up so much time. He would spend so much time studying - hours and hours and hours for months before the test (I tease him that this route was way better since he got to learn way more by studying for it five times than people that only got to study once)
• He always took time off to study, which limited the vacation time he had available to spend with us.

I think it was on the second test that I tried bribery and told him, "If you pass the test, I'll buy you a TV." When we found out he passed, I remembered that and thought I'd buy him a TV. I did some research, found a TV I liked that wasn't too expensive and thought of how to surprise him. I showed him the TV online and told him I bought it (he knew I'd never do it, so that was a safe way to see his reaction) and he told me if he couldn't have the 70" TV he wanted, he didn't want one. Never mind a 70" TV would never fit and never mind I was not about to pay $3k for his dream TV. My cheapness teamed up with my resentment to has attitude and I thought, Good! I'll save my money if he's going to act like that. This was easy since we all know how much I like to save money.

The day after Christmas, Rachel and I went to the grocery store. Realizing I should have just gone to Costco to buy what I needed, we headed to Costco. I showed Rachel the TV (which I had decided not to buy because I just couldn't talk myself into spending that money when we have loans to pay off). I told her she had 10 minutes to talk me into buying it. And 10 minutes later, I bought the TV. I figured he could return it if he didn't like it (ha ha). I wasn't even planning on going to Costco that day. When we got home, I went inside and told Jason there was a bunch of stuff in the back of my car. He was obviously very, very surprised when he went to the car and saw a TV. He came in carrying it on one shoulder. All day he'd look at the box and say, "I can't believe you did that." Yeah, me neither, but it sure was fun!