I can’t decide whether I’m trying to talk myself into buying a tractor or out of buying one.
  It’s not as though I have a farm or a construction business and need a tractor.
  I could have used one while I was building my house several years ago. A small backhoe and a front loader would have come in handy, but I couldn’t afford a tractor then.
  Now my truck is finally paid for, so there’s monthly payment money in the budget itching to be spent on something.
  All I really need a tractor for, if need is the word, is pond maintenance and occasional landscaping projects. Maybe I’d get a tiller for it and churn the garden deeper than I can with my small rototiller. Maybe I’d use a tractor 10 or 15 days a year.
  For that little use, anyone would be better off renting the tractor and whatever implements the job required. On the one hand, it would take about a dozen years to pay in rental charges what a new tractor would cost.
  On the other hand, at the end of those years, I’d either own a tractor or I wouldn’t, all for the same amount of money.
  I wandered into a tractor store to browse. The first thing I told the salesman was that there was no way I really needed to buy a tractor for the little work I could use one for.
  He’d heard that line before, of course. Part of his job is to relieve prospective customers of the guilt they walk in the door with.
  People buy tractors for more reasons than the need to move dirt around.
  He told of a dentist who didn’t need a tractor, but he bought one anyway. For therapy, he said.
  That reminded me of a doctor I know who has a tractor for a garden smaller than mine.
  The salesman said some people buy a tractor they’ll seldom use simply for the convenience of having it there when they want to use it.
  I could understand that. Many people own light airplanes they seldom fly. They’d be money ahead to rent one a few times a year, but they want it when they want it, so they own one.
  I sold my own little airplane years ago when I worked the numbers and realized it cost me more than twice as much to fly it a few hours a year as it would to rent one.
  The salesman explained the features of several small tractors, the fancy ones and the basic machines, the orange ones and the green ones. I left with a handful of brochures and price lists.
 Tractors today are more refined than the ones I played on at my uncles farm decades ago. Now they have automatic transmissions, roll bars, and cup holders.
 If I get one, it’ll probably be a green one. Green goes better with the house and my truck. Besides, my grandsons are partial to green tractors.
  I realize I don’t really need a tractor. On the one hand, they cost a lot of money. But on the other hand… Vroom! Vroom!