Being Tight #101

Do you know how to know when you are tight? When it comes to fruition that you realize distinctly the last time there was a twenty-five-cent jump in the cost of a 12oz can of soda, but you can't remember what you had for lunch yesterday. People love to say things to me like, "you are very careful with your money." Come on people, call them like you see them, I'm as tight as bark on a tree. I have been told that I'm so tight when I walk, I squeak. Channeling your inner tight ass is not as easy as it sounds, however I have been born with just such a gift. Channeling anything is not easy, I know it sounds a bit like a religious experience, but it isn't. By the way, if anyone tries to hand you a rattlesnake while you are parked in a church pew, consider a sect change. In the end you won't have proved anything, and that scenario can never end well.

By the way, Oklahoma State University does not offer a "wedge ass #101 class. Although they should, in which I should add I could teach, educational certificate notwithstanding. I could make masters like Clarke Howard and Dave Ramsey look like rookies. Being a penny pincher cannot be learned, it is innate, that is to say it's a gift, not a privilege. It is something you are born with and its part of your DNA from the time you come kicking and screaming into this big blue ball we call earth. It's like cowlicks, ingrown toenails, and a proclivity to partake in southern whiskey and loose women of questionable character. Even though I am not Catholic, I gave up the latter for Lent. The love of a good woman can work a lot of miracles.

I directly inherited my cheapness from my grandpa on my dad's side, he was the master, which if I am not mistaken makes him Yoda, and me Luke Skywalker. I once had the old man down for a visit and he of course offered to take a crowd of about ten of us out to lunch at a buffet. He obviously had no idea what he was getting into as once we were rung up; he appeared to be having the big one like Fred Sanford when the corner liquor store ran out of ripple. People who are naturally tight have a generous streak in them but that cannot hold a candle to their inclination to self-preservation.

I have taken rubber spatulas to the inside of a peanut butter jar. I have been seen using grandma's old rolling pin in order to squeeze every bit of toothpaste out of a tube that cost less than a dollar. I often hear a little voice in the back of my head that says something like "hey, don't throw that out yet, you can still get three more brushes out of it." You know how the last few drops of laundry detergent have a tendency to stick to the insides of the plastic container? I have found you can just cut it open with a box knife and drop it in the last load. You have to be a little off mentally to go there, but I have done just that. I must add however, that laundry pods are a genius move, they are just a smidge more expensive, but they are far less messy and wasteful. I have shirts hanging in my closet they are well past the age to vote. Are many of them out of fashion? Sure, they are, but my cheapness gene is far more powerful than my proclivity towards fashion. Folks, I am using an alarm that is nearly forty years old. I wish I had just made that up for the sake of good journalism, but I did not. As usual absurdity wins every time.

I once out waited out a car salesman to the tune of four months in order to get the deal of a lifetime on a F-150. It seems the truck was a 2014 but the calendar year was coming up in 2016 and if they didn't unload it post-haste, they were going to lose their tail on the deal. They, in turn happily knocked $11,000 off the price of a truck that had only three miles on it. It seems it is true; haste makes waste. If I had known how the prices were going to skyrocket like they have, I would have purchased two of them and I am not even kidding.

I can teach you how to cash in your bonus point on a credit card to get free groceries. I could have (at one time) shown you how to get double points on your green stamp purchases. I can show you how to use big box stores sales tactics against them and get $100 off stereo equipment. Some people might call it illegal; I prefer to use the word unethical. Illegal is such a dirty word. Taking your derelict cousin, a file in a cake is unethical, helping him saw the bars in half is illegal, therein lies the difference. Some people have perfect penmanship and can beautifully write a letter; some excel at licking stamps. Personally, I excel at pushing the envelope.