One of the things I love so much about this place is that I see so many parts of myself and my life played out in my friends here. I see a lot of myself and MrsZB in Lou and BB. MrsZB spends every penny we make and then some. Twenty years ago, when we had no kids, I was knocking down $160K/year and we still lived paycheck to paycheck. She blows money like it grows on trees. She denies herself nothing. We have a huge closet full of her clothes – some of them several years old with the tags still on them. IOW, she didn’t need them and has never worn them. But she saw them and liked them and …, well, you know. Right now we’re close to bankrupt. I don’t know what we’re going to do if we don’t get that old house sold pretty soon. And would you believe that W is talking about buying the kids a $7000 four-wheeler for Christmas?!?
Me, I’m admittedly cheap. I won’t but things that I legitimately need because I’m simply unwilling to spend the money. That, and I just don’t want anything. To me, things are just things. And as you acquire more and more, those things start to own you instead of the other way around. I know I’ve related this before, but in the movie Cheyenne Social Club, I can’t remember if it was Jimmy Stewart or Henry Fonda, but one of them is telling the other that he didn’t know why anybody would want to own more than two shirts – you can only wear one at a time. My philosophy exactly.
