A few minutes ago, I discovered something very surprising.
See, back in early 2005, when I first sold Prophet, I thought I’d treat myself to something special. i had, after all, worked 13 long years building the company, and after all that effort and risk, I decided it was time to give Tim a big present. So – – being a male and all – – I bought myself a sports car.
But not a typical sports car. Do you really picture me going out and getting something tacky like a Corvette? No, I wanted something beautiful. And the most beautiful car I could imagine (within reason) was a BMW Z8. Here’s a photograph:
I didn’t ask anyone’s permission. I didn’t tell anyone. I just bought it.
Well, the car showed up, and it was absolutely gorgeous. I, umm, surprised my family members with my new acquisition – – and the enthusiasm was, shall we say, muted. Nonetheless, I tooled around town in this gorgeous 500+ horsepower work of art.
In short order, though, I decided to get rid of it (illustrating once again, it is virtually impossible for me to stay “long” anything). For one thing, virtually all of my driving was in town, so lurching from stop sign to stop sign in a high-powered sports car was a bit ridiculous. Second, I just knew that, sooner or later, some klutz would open his door on my car, scratch or dent it, and I’d be heartbroken.
So, in literally one week’s time, I decided to sell it. Now, common sense says that if you buy and car and then sell it a week later, you’re going to take a bath. I bought it used (they didn’t make them anymore), so the price was something like $95,000, and I put it on the market. I soon had a buy at exactly the price I paid, and I patted myself on the back for getting to enjoy something so beautiful for a little while and not losing any money on it.
Well, today for no particular reason, I decided (over a decade after all this happened) to see what they were going for. I figured that, well, it has been a decade, and they’re probably cheaper now, like maybe $70,000 or something.
Ummm, no. I just did a search, and they cost anywhere from about $230,000 to $350,000. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go scream into a pillow now, because my good taste in cars is clearly something I underestimated, and this has got to be one of the few times in history that blowing money on a showy automobile actually would have been one hell of a good investment.
