I want to respond to comments made by a friend concerning my blogs: “Meditation on Toast” and “Cocoa Meditation”. Because I respect this person’s privacy, she shall forever remain anonymous. Suffice to say; had I been a celibate, she would not exist.
Let me paraphrase her comment to read: “That’s just like Dad; sitting in the cold, freezing his wazoo off and contemplating a slice of toast while he gloats over saving a few cents.”
First, the “freezing his wazoo off” part implies that I am enduring some hardship and am not comfortable. I believe in comfort; I just believe in achieving it in the least cost, most efficient way. If that means sitting in a 60 degree room with two pairs of sweat pants, two flannel shirts and a sock cap on (I save my ski mask for bank withdrawals)…well, so be it. Why pay for another 10 degrees just to take my clothes off? Of course I’ll back down on this when your mother comes home. I view her “you have to sleep sometime” assertions as veiled threats.
Next, the “gloats over saving a few cents” part implies that saving 50 cents by eating PBJ toast instead of a sweet roll is insignificant. Well, of course it is! It’s not the 50 cents; it’s the dang principle of the thing. The toast is a metaphor for everything that can be substituted for a more expensive, but no better alternative. It’s the lemonade and sweet tea that replace the lemon-lime sodas and colas. It’s the brown-bag lunches that replace the fast food. It’s the home-grown salads that replace lettuce shipped from Napa Valley. It’s the quality used-car that replaces the spanking new car to get from point A to point B. It’s the scholarship that replaces the student loan and the library that replaces the college. It’s the hobbies that make money, like gardening and writing versus the expensive recreations that cost an arm and a leg. It’s the small-mortgage-payment bungalow instead of the I’m-in-foreclosure mansion.
The principle is that if many satisfactory substitutes can be found which replace many expensive alternatives at a fraction of the price, then we can live well on a fraction of our income and labor. There, my daughter…the parable of the toast and the Danish has been revealed to you!
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Funny thing, Frank, is every since starting to work on this with you, I've been thinking more about optimizing my life.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I thought I had cut a lot of stuff out, but then this week I realized I could save probably half of my monthly gas bill by just staying at work and using their gym instead of running home to work out. Granted, this will only amount to at most $25 a month, but it's still pretty significant when you consider my health insurance is going up $60 a month next year.