There are strange gaps on my indulg-o-meter.
I will think nothing of dropping 30 bucks on a subscription to Salon, a publication I can read at no cost to me whatsoever, save the annoyance of a little progressive-cause ad clutter, yet I doubt I have paid full price for a book since 1995.
I squeeze the last bit out of the toothpaste, the dish soap, the computers (the pbook is coming up on 3 years old; the G5, almost 4), but it is rare I will deny myself an item from the grocery store. The expensive grocery store.
My own mother, who learned from her own mother how to squeeze a dime from a nickel, once got up in my grill about not being able to let go of my old clothes. And one of her daughters (that would be my sister), expressed deep concern upon loading me into the car to head out to my SXSWi adventure, an adventure that cost me upwards of 2 large, all told, upon viewing the back of my Gap-by-way-of-thrift-store shirt. It had holes, she said. I'll be wearing a sweater, I replied.
Even I was shocked when I took it off in Austin and finally saw the extent of the shredding. But did I pitch it? No, it would make perfectly good rags! When I'm done wearing it around the house as a work shirt.
So it is big, big news when I spend almost $400 on a vacuum cleaner. This vacuum cleaner. I got it with a coupon ($60 off!), paid zero sales tax, and only $2.95 for shipping. That's still $382.94...for a vacuum cleaner!
But here's the thing: I have been wanting a good vacuum cleaner for years. Roughly ten years, or half of the time that I've owned the last vacuum cleaner, which never worked all that well to begin with. And I've wanted a Dyson for roughly three years, or about all of the time that The BF has had his. His second. Because the wife took the first one (and the good trash can, and the kickass couch) to the new home. She's no dummy, The BF's Wife. I vacuum for fun at The BF's, because goddammit, that vacuum makes it fun.
Vacuuming. Fun. You heard me.
Today, I got the call from my mailbox people that the vacuum was here. I was as giddy as a schoolgirl, as excited as Navin Johnson when the new phone book was there. I dropped everything and fetched that puppy home. And vacuumed all the easy stuff that my old vacuum had such a rough time of. The grubby baseboards. The skeevy strip where my file cabs meet the carpet. The ceiling fans. Oh! the ceiling fans!
And then I put my new baby in a place of honor in the living room. He is not going into the closet for the foreseeable future. He makes my heart sing, does he.
Stop being an asshole. Stop cheaping out. Or, if you're a spendthrift, charging your children's future into the poorhouse, maybe stop that. I'm not you; I don't which voodoo you do and/or don't do all that well.
We all have our weird, inbred habits. Mine, for some reason, is denying myself the tools that might make my life not only easier and cleaner, but safer.
Well, okay, maybe not safer. But far, far more enjoyable.
Provided I'm not being overly greedy? That I'm keeping a lid on it? That I'm living a relatively modest existence, helping out where I can, not getting all Marie Antoinette on people's asses?
Stopping is okay by me.
xxx c
Image by Saima via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.