COLUMN: Congratulate your cheap friends
I’m cheap.
Some might even go so far as to say that I am stingy.
There might be those of you out there who are reading this and shudder to think that I must be trapped in this dire condition. Others are immediately skipping my column entirely, since they were assuming I was going to include some type of prize give away in the middle of my article. The rest are skipping my column because my observations are pointless and lack any trace of recognizable logic. Though I can’t argue with the latter point, I will not immediately deny the possibility of a prize give-away somewhere within this column.
Now … back to being stingy. For many people, stinginess is a disease that can and must be remedied. Most of these people are my friends, mainly because whenever we go out to do something they always end up taking the bill. You may wonder why they are my friends if this is the case, so I must confess that for such a privilege, I am required to pay. Of course, every time it’s time for me to pay my friendship bill, I always seem to be low on cash, and one of my buddies has to cover for me.
Since I’m now participating in Study Abroad in Costa Rica, not only are my friends fortunate to have a temporary break from my mooching, but they also have the distant hope that while I’m here, my stinginess will be completely cured. Their principle reason for this hope is based on the fact that I am now in a place where the monetary unit is at an exchange rate of 400 colones to one dollar. With such an obviously disproportionate exchange rate in my favor, they assume that I will finally be released of my insatiably stubborn refusal to purchase.
On the contrary, however, I’m afraid that the economy here has worsened my situation. Though this is partly because of the “ugly tourist tax,” which targets anyone wearing a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and a ridiculous straw hat while lugging around a huge camera, it can also be attributed to the fact that I am still at a second-grade math level, which makes me look at certain price tags and wonder whether I’m spending simply a quarter or a quarter of a million dollars. In retrospect, I don’t know how many helicopters are in the market for 25 cents, but still, it’s confusing.
So, I’m afraid that when I see lunch for a price of 1,000 colones, I just about go unconscious, instinctively feeling that I shouldn’t buy lunch for 1,000 of anything, whether it’s $1,000, colones, or special edition Lego sets. I can only imagine how quickly I would starve in a place like Colombia, where the exchange rate is 2,827 pesos to the dollar.
Having considered this, I am now convinced I’ll never be able to rid myself of my stingy nature. I am succumbed to my fate. If you find yourself in the same situation, however, I hope you will not despair. As usual, I have provided a solution.
Instead of allowing stinginess to be a bad stereotype, something to be ashamed of, I propose that we glorify stinginess in any and all of its forms. What do I mean by this? It’s quite simple, really.
Congratulate your friend who refuses to pay you gas for getting a ride to school every day. Thank those grimy companions of yours who purposely avoid showers in order to cut down on their water bill. I would even suggest a special awards ceremony for the nation’s stingiest person (sponsored, of course, by Fox). Due to the nature of the ceremony, the actual award would simply be a gift certificate for a McDonald’s Happy Meal, but the idea is what matters.
So, I direct this message to all those Scrooges out there. To all those who live at home and plan on it until their parents take legal action against them; to all those who take unfair advantage of free samples at grocery stores; to all those who read their textbooks in the USU Bookstore; to all those who sift through the Deseret Industry’s donation bins in the middle of the night: Let us glory in our stinginess. Cheapness is a virtue.
Now that you have read through my glorifying stinginess proposal, and now that I have sold you on the idea that cheapness is something worth attaining, I think it’s probably an opportune time to tell you that I will now fully deny the presence of a prize give-away within this column. You can thank me later.
Marty Reeder is a senior majoring in history education. All comments and financial donations (preferably colones) can be sent to martr@cc.usu.edu.