October 12, 2005
Cheapskate

It started innocently enough at the carwash.  Rather than just twiddle my thumbs time is usually filled by reading.  Anything, I’m not choosie.   Be it a used car circular, a brochure on hearing aids or a booklet offering “fractional ownership” at a resort outside Ogallala, reading still beats the alternative.  But there I sat with time hanging heavy until a pile of old newspapers was spotted stacked in the corner.  Sorting through the left behind advertising sections I came upon the back three pages of a weeks old Denver Post business section and a column titled “The Color of Money” written by Michelle Singletary of the Washington Post syndicate.  What it should be called is, “Cheap Beyond Belief.” 

Raised by a mother tighter than the bark on a tree and married to a lady who throws nickels around like manhole covers, I thought I knew everything about life as a cheapskate.  Come to find out my family members are strictly minor league when it comes to being close with a buck.

In nation-wide money saving contest where first place was a hundred bucks (whee!!) the second place seventy-five dollar prize, went to a retired IRS manager.  His daughter had helped decorate a homecoming float, and if you remember anything about float building in the fall, it involves stuffing lots of paper tissues into the holes of wire screen.  After the parade, the second place finisher had the kids park the float in his driveway and he spent the week very neatly removing and folding all the tissues and then storing them in his basement secure in the knowledge he had a free lifetime supply.  The columnist lauded the saver with the words, “Clever, cheap, environmentally friendly, all rolled into one.” 

A more apt description, “This is a person to be avoided at all costs.”  I don’t know the second place finisher from a posthole but couldn’t help but think how mind numbing it would be to sit next to this guy on a cross country trip.  Or run into him at the neighborhood cocktail party where he could not only do a tissue by tissue replay of every fold but also pass along take your breath away money saving tips on how to re-cycle paper plates or cut down on soap expense by wearing underwear inside out for two or three days before washing.  And remember this guy finished 2^nd. 

First place?  It was a lady from Hawaii who was vacationing in Washington D.C.  Her son had a drink from a container with “HI 5” printed on the side.  According to the contest winner, “There we were in D.C. with a bottle worth 5 cents in Hawaii, but worthless in Washington so I washed it out and packed it in my suitcase.”  I’m sure what the politicians in Hawaii had in mind when they passed their bottle re-cycling law was for folks to load up suitcases with empty cans on the mainland to be redeemed in the Aloha State.   

Now Nebraskans were attempting the same re-cycle coup crossing the bridge into Iowa until those crafty Hawkeyes stopped out of state re-cycling with some sort of stamp on Iowa cans and bottles identifying them as local not imported trash.  But Nebraska and Iowa are only a river apart.  Hawaii is thousands of miles away.  But what’s an ocean when it comes to cashing in to the tune of a nickel a can?