Piggy Bank

Periodically I have an acute attack of what my cousin Alice called “The Cheaps.”  It can happen at any time – like when you decide to get a less expensive, non-preferred brand of something-or-other at the grocery store which you know will be a mistake but…  Or when you make that house repair a do-it-yourself project instead of hiring a professional (also usually a mistake.)

When you are living on a fixed income without a lot of discretionary wiggle-room, an attack of the cheaps most often comes along to interrupt daydreams.  You know the kind.  A trip to Paris just to revisit old haunts.  Or theater tickets and an overnight at a schmancy hotel in the big city.  Or even (and I hate these particular attacks) when you think a dinner out at a favorite local watering hole might break up the monotony of winter.

Right now, both Nyel and I have caught the infection.  It didn’t come out of nowhere this time.  We’ve been working up to it, somehow.  Much like a winter cold that gets to the point of putting you to bed for a day or two.  I think it started when Nyel began getting the income tax stuff together and thinking about how much money we spent last year and for what.  He made lists of categories and added up columns of numbers and divided by twelve and subtracted outgo from income.  It was interesting, though not particularly revealing.  Mostly, it was depressing.

United States Coast Guard Motor Life Boat CG-44381 at the National Motor Life Boat School, Cape Disappointment, WA — still working without pay

Then came the idiotic government shutdown.  Not that we get any money from the feds.  Quite the contrary.  But our friends and neighbors stationed at Cape D are feeling the pinch.  Our local food banks are trying to help.  So are various grocery stores.  An editorial in the Observer urged landlords to cut tenants some slack.  There is an extra layer of worry and concern in the community.  And even though our leaders in the other Washington are talking in terms of billions and even trillions – none of which really computes for me – it all translates into belt-tightening here at our house.

Beyond that, of course, is the feeling that none of us is safe.  Not from financial crisis.  And not from the worry that life as we know is not all that secure.  I don’t know if wearing my frayed and faded Levis for a while longer will make any difference, but when it came to getting a new pair… I thought of Alice and convinced myself that tattered is a fashion statement – even for an octogenarian. And I wondered, once again, if my meager savings would be better kept under my mattress…