Friday, October 2, 2009

Wal-Mart Frugal and Proud of It

I love emails, usually. And for a while, I thought one of the best is the current Just Wal-Mart Folks that arrived, simultaneously, from Australia, South Africa, and West Post Office. It is a collection of rustics in various garbs from pink shorts and yellow knee high boots to a “Fuck You” hat to a swastika emblazoned red t-shirt. Cool. But the more I surfed through the photos the more I got troubled. Then it struck me “right upside ah da haid”: there is something elitist about that email (I researched and found that all the originators AND forwarders are registered Republicans),and it rubs me against the grain of my fur. The collection, after all, makes fun of people for having the audacity to live cheaply and for dressing like they do. Furthermore, I am crushed personally because I am probably the cheapest SOB to stroll the aisles of late-night Wal-Mart. Please don’t get me wrong; I don’t consider myself cheap towards other people. After all when I was investigating religion from the pews of the local catholic bingo game, I always tipped The Little Sisters very well; I have been known as being over-generous in tipping, especially at a Hooters; and the few friends who remember me will account that I will buy a round or two at any pub and enjoying doing it. But this Wal-Mart email suggests that I have some defect for being frugal.


Look: the guy in the Fuck You hat probably didn’t pay much for it at all; I can’t imagine that he strolled into Neiman Marcus and found it at the gentleman's accessory-table. And I am as cheap in the chapeau department as one can get; I bought six brand new Marilyn Manson baseball hats, 100 percent wool, black with purple embroidery for a buck a piece, a DOLLAR. That was about five years ago, and they are such nice hats that I am only just breaking in the second one and use, still, the first on rainy days. It is my favorite golf hat; call me silly but these are cool hats especially when any Adidas one is twenty-one fifty. And, how much could a woman possibly pay for a leopard print top paired with a tiger print, spandex bottom? I understand and applaud her frugal nature. Say, if new, golf slacks would cost me sixty-five dollars each. About eight years ago I got a baker’s dozen, polyester Sans A Belt golf pants for six fifty total. Now that’s a bargain not to mention that I got red, canary yellow, lime green, and for Fourth of July, red, white, and blue checked ones. And after eight years, so what if the yellow-checked pairs’ zipper pops off track whenever I hitch them up? A safety pin snitched from a tag on a golf jacket holds things together and in; I don’t wear them around women or children. I am proud of saving so much money on golf stuff by being on the lookout for bargains: thirty-five golf gloves for twenty dollars, real goat, made in India from some sort of goat-hide that would not surrender its odor. What do it I care if the gloves and my hands smell a little like moldy, goat urine? A Foot Joy glove is fourteen dollars at the pro-shop; now who’s silly?

And it is not just golf where I save money: take my trucks and cars. I drove a ’76 Toyota pickup that cost 500 bucks from ’88 to ’00 and then sold it to the junk yard for 185. I do confess to driving it for a year and a half without a clutch, but other than at stop lights and signs where I had to shut the truck off and then hop it through the intersection until I got up enough speed for first gear to take over, it really wasn’t a big deal. My current transportation is a Focus station wagon (I don’t know what year it is), and the piston-dudes that hold up the hatch have run out of grease, seals gone bad. Thus, the hatch, on cool mornings will, if you aren’t paying attention, drift down onto your head. The closures are about 100 dollars for the pair; I found a worn out, old broom along Route 13, took it home and sawed off the rotten bristled end. Viola, a hatch prop: savings= 100 dollars. When the floor mat on the driver’s side wore through, I cut a hunk out of some red Astro-turf left over from tiling my shower, custom fitted the remnant to the hole and duct taped it in from the back. Damn, floor mats are expensive; why spend good money for new ones? I tried just duct taping it because the grays kind of matched, but the tape could not maintain a purchase on the mat’s fibers. And batteries, folks they sell "blems” out there. For real, there is such a thing as a blemished battery, and you can get one cheap. The blem won’t have a label or advertising or directions, but for fifteen bucks it will crank your engine. And I found that if the new battery doesn’t fit just right into battery rack, I can take an empty, plastic, quart oil bottle and wedge it in between the battery and the wheel well; the plastic bottle gets warm and will mold right around the battery and reduce rattling and vibration-wear on the cables.


I am ambivalent about that Wal-Mart email; the photos reveal some strange looking outfits on equally strange looking folks both of which caused me at first to chuckle and to scratch my left forehead in amazement. Yet, I am a kindred-spirit with those good Americans; I understand how you can get by by shopping smart and taking advantage of stuff that people who shop at Food Lion often toss in a dumpster (I ought to tell you about what time of night Wawa tosses out the bagels and donuts, but I don’t need any competition in that department).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was f-ing hialrious. I would gladly pay tickets to see you wearing a Marilym Manson hat! Frugal thing you, if you didn't know how to fix things I would swear that you are Jewish! ( I meant that in a good way!)

You made my day complete with this one! I will be laughing all the way to Wal-Mart, where I purchase my bullets!

By the way, lighten up with the Hooter's tipping. They are a bunch of idiots, and I mean that in the nicest way possible as well. But why tip someone who can't count it up?

Anonymous said...

Had to read this again. I laughed just as much the second time. You sure are a lively one!