The guilt of doing something nice

Today has been a long but good day. It started with me getting up and staggering down the hallway to the.... well actually I think we can safely miss the first part of my day out so as to prevent you from having indelible mental images requiring much therapy to remove from your brain.

I changed my insurance company first thing this morning. It's always fun answering questions about your past criminal activity. I wonder how guilty I looked when I paused after being asked if I had any speeding convictions in the last 5 years. I haven't had any in case you were wondering. But I did have to stop and think for a moment... how long is 5 years, what have I done? I'm sure I looked suspicious.

I then came home and started to clean out my garage. I haven't been using the garage for my car, rather it has been a black hole of storage. An old desk, two lawn mowers, a ladder, various tools, garden table and chairs, bales of insulation.... and several rubbish bags full of newspaper and old plastic bottles. So I started to clean things out, picking up the rubbish bags and putting them in the car to take to the landfill. I got a hell of a fright when I picked up one bag and the bag underneath started to move! Closer inspection found a mother hedgehog and three little baby hedgehogs nesting in the bag. This created a bit of a quandry... I couldn't leave the hedgehog family where they were, but I also didn't want to cast them into the bushes. The mother was rather perturbed at my presence and was nudging her offspring further into the shadows while I stood there scratching my head. In the end I grabbed a cardboard box and using some paper I picked up the babies and put them in it. The mother was a bigger problem as I didn't want to touch her and she was trying to run away. So I quickly scooped her up with my spade and put her in the box as well. Then I took the whole lot down to the garden shed and put them inside. I don't want a colony of hedgehogs living in my shed but I figure I'll leave them there for a few days until the babies are big enough to survive the outside and then I'll evict them.

So why was I cleaning the garage? Certainly not for my 18 year old Nissan Bluebird. No... this is the good bit... today I traded it in for a new car. I'm now the proud owner of a 3.8 litre V6 Holden Commodore! I've never had such a nice car. I used to own a sporty Honda Prelude and then a Nissan 300ZX, a two seater bright red sports car that went like a rocket. But that was 10 years ago and since then I've had a grotty Mitsubishi Mirage that was a cast off from my sister and the aforementioned Bluebird. These cars both served their purpose and as a youth worker I really couldn't afford to spend much on a car. So I'm really buzzing about the new wheels!

It raised an interesting issue though. I couldn't help feeling guilty at spending good money on myself. I started to worry that "people" would be upset that I had a good car... because somehow it seems that people think that because they help pay your wages they somehow have the right to question how you spend it (I now work for my church after spending the last 6 years working for Youth for Christ, both jobs getting paid from supporters). I know I'm not alone in this... the feeling of guilt. It's as if I should live a life of humilty and poverty, because we all know that poverty makes a better youth worker, an even better christian (tounge fixed firmly in cheek).

Over the last few years I've learnt how to live very simply. If I told you how little I've earned a year, you would cry. And it's been good to learn that you don't need a lot to be happy and you can be satisfied even if you don't have a wallet bursting with cash. But it has also been tough at times. It's not a good feeling when you are worried about spending $2 because you have nothing left in your bank account. There were a few weeks when I didn't eat lunch because I couldn't afford it.

So it's been a time of interesting feelings as I've gone through the process of buying this car. I've decided that the car will be a blessing and that I will enjoy it. And if you have a problem with that... tough! I'll turn off the traction control and wave to you as I lay a big black patch down the road!