THE NEXT MORNING, I had leftover pizza with some painkillers for breakfast, followed by a strong cup of coffee. Scooter had a bowl of Froot Loops. After I spent ten minutes convincing him that my head was fine, we headed off to Melvin’s Marine Emporium.
Scooter had a long list of items he swore we needed for the boat. He had a much shorter second list of items he wanted for the boat. I was pretty sure that a lot of the items on list number one could easily be moved to list number two.
When we walked through the door, we were cheerfully greeted by a gangly teenager with a bad case of acne. “Ahoy there, sailors! Welcome to Melvin’s Marine Emporium. My name’s Chad. How can I help you today?”
After I confiscated the nice-to-have list, Scooter handed Chad the need-to-have-right-now list. “We
