“Why are you such a cheap bitch, Amanda?” I’m often asked.
Well, everything I know about being frugal, I owe to my dear old dad. My God
was he cheap. Daddy was a cheap one, no question. Looking back on his
cheapitude, it’s epic. It’s monumental. Nay, it is awe inspiring. Momma was
almost as cheap, but Daddy won the prize.
My parents never made much money, but they could squeeze a
penny until it cried. We used fans instead of air conditioning for most of my
childhood. When we finally got a window unit, we would crank it up until you
could hang meat safely in our living room, then covered up with blankets. I’m
sure this is why I now freeze most of the time. I’m damaged. We used a wood
stove for heat, and it was never lit over night. You might burn the house down
and that was a waste of resources. Just use more blankets! There is nothing quite like waking up at 4:45 am (because, that’s when my parents made
me get up) and stepping out of bed into a toasty 34 degree room. Once your feet hit the floor, you ran to the
front of the house which is where the heater was and snuggled as close as you
could to get warm.
You may have images of a nice wood fireplace crackling with
the burning of dried oak, but that wouldn’t be accurate. Daddy worked for a
building supply company, and they allowed him to take home all the little
scraps and leftover pieces of wood. That was our wood supply. Nice treated
lumber. No, it didn’t hurt me one bit. Cough. Cough.
We had cable, but Daddy hated paying the cable company. So
he canceled it and purchased our lovely, white, monstrosity of a satellite dish
that sat like a soviet era monument in the back yard. It was massive, and it
never worked. I can remember running
outside and cranking that thing in an attempt to reach some network – any
network. All we ever picked up was old movies and skin flicks. I saw more boobs
that year than any ten year old should see. That was a welcome change from the
fleeting glimpses of T&A you could see on the scrambled Playboy channel on
real cable. No, I didn’t sit there and try to make out a couple having sex.
Never. Ever.
But that was just one of Daddy’s schemes to save money. All
of our light fixtures had miniature fluorescents in them like our kitchen did.
We used solar panels to heat our water. I was strongly discouraged from
flushing the TP because it might stop up the pipe, and it wasted water. Yeah,
that was not a great plan. I guess I should be happy we even had indoor
plumbing. My sister is twenty years older than me, and when she was a teen, the
county condemned my parent’s house until Daddy installed indoor plumbing. This
was not colonial times. It was the late 60’s. Indoor water closets had taken
off by them. I won’t even discuss the year we bought a ton of Sir Anthony James
(like Amway, but not as popular) household products to get a free microwave.
I reiterate…he was a cheap one.
Amanda Z
Domesticology
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