I text my brother.
He’s on vacation in Sedona, Arizona.
Sedona is not a town, it’s a screensaver.
Sedona is what happens when God gets bored and decides to show off.
Sedona is red rock cathedrals, dramatic skies, and nature reminding you that your problems are small and your email inbox is a joke.
So I text him what I believe are perfectly reasonable questions.
How was the GC?”
“Was it grand?”
He texts back:
“We go there tomorrow. We are spending 2 days in Sedona and 2 days in the Grand Canyon.”
Strong start. That’s a real vacation.
That’s the kind of trip where you come back home acting like you’ve seen things.
Like you have wisdom now.
Like you drink coffee slower.
So I send the next questions.
“How is Sedona?”
“Do they have Chilis?”
Because I’m not a complicated man.
I just want to know if there’s a place nearby that serves fajitas on a cast iron skillet loud enough to wake the dead.
He replies:
“Nice but meh. Nothing with brand”
My brother is conducting a market analysis.
This is a man who cannot simply stand in awe of something naturally beautiful.
If the mountain doesn’t have a logo, he doesn’t trust it.
He’s basically saying:
“These rocks are impressive. But what are their core values? Who’s their target demographic? Where’s their brand guide?”
Fine. Whatever. That’s his thing.
Then… he sends the message.
The message that changes everything.
“We are driving a little way to go get dinner at Whole Foods to save not
Money.”
First of all, the “Money” arriving in a separate text is perfect.
It’s like even his phone couldn’t type it with a straight face.
Second of all, I read it again, slower, because I think I misunderstood.
But no.
This is what he is saying:
They are in Sedona.
On vacation.
And they are going to drive away from the place they paid to go…
to eat at a store that exists where they live…
to save money.
So I respond with the only honest interpretation:
“lets fly to another state to eat food that we can get at home to save money”
And then I send the period at the end of the sentence, the judge’s gavel:
“Thats logic”
Because what else do you call it?
This is not frugal.
This is not budgeting.
This is not financial wisdom.
This is vacation logic.
It’s a form of reasoning you can only unlock after you’ve already spent money on flights and hotels and rental cars, and then you suddenly remember you once heard Dave Ramsey say “beans and rice.”
Then he replies:
“We already have spent money now we are gonna save so
Some”
And I need you to understand the significance of that word: Some.
Because “some” is doing all the heavy lifting.
“We already spent money, so now we’re going to save… some.”
That is a man who believes the universe has a scoreboard.
A man who believes vacations have a moral accounting system.
Like if you eat one $9 Whole Foods sandwich in a hotel room, God will refund you for the souvenir magnet and the parking fee.
Let me explain how this works:
You don’t fly to Arizona to eat Whole Foods.
Whole Foods is not an attraction.
Whole Foods is what you do when you’re home and you say,
“I should probably pretend to be healthy.”
Sedona is where you eat at a little place with no sign and a guy named Hector who cooks like he’s mad at your hunger.
Sedona is where you pay too much for breakfast and you don’t care because the coffee tastes like adventure and irresponsibility.
Sedona is where you order something called “The Sunrise Bowl” and it costs $18 and somehow you’re proud of yourself.
But Whole Foods?
Whole Foods is not vacation.
Whole Foods is Tuesday.
And that’s the heartbreak of this story.
My brother didn’t travel to Sedona.
He traveled to a different version of errands.
And honestly…
I respect it.
Not because it’s smart.
But because it takes commitment.
To spend thousands on travel…
and then refuse, on principle, to buy a $24 burger…
because you want to “save some.”
That’s not logic.
That’s character.
Misguided, confusing character…
…but character.