Have you ever watched "Extreme Cheapskates" on TLC? It follows people who are too cheap to pay for "luxuries" such as toilet paper, deodorant, electricity, furniture, clothes, food, water,.....you get the point.
A while back, I was having a conversation with one of my coworkers:
Me: How was your week off?
P: It was good. We had friends come to visit.
Me: Oh cool, what did you do with them?
P: Oh, not much. I don't have a car so we couldn't really go anywhere. Well, I mean, I have a car. But I can't drive it because I haven't renewed my registration for the past few years. It's just too expensive. And then gas money to drive. I just can't afford it anymore.
(That's true that driving can be expensive, but it seems to me that if he's that hard up for cash, it would make more sense to sell the car instead of just keeping it sitting in the garage, undriveable for a few years)
P: I've been doing a lot to save more money for my retirement lately. I got rid of my cell phone last year. That was almost $20 a month! And our bedroom is on the main floor, so we turned off all the power to the upstairs level. Did you know that even when the lights are turned off, if the circuit breaker is still on, that is costing you money?! So we turned off all the circuit breakers to the upstairs a few years ago. My son's room is up there (his 40-something-year-old son lives with him), but he just hangs out in the family room downstairs until it is time to go to sleep, so he doesn't need any lights up there. And when our friends were staying with us we gave them a lantern to use upstairs and they didn't seem to mind too much.
(What?! This can't be real!! It's horrible enough that your son lives upstairs like a troll, but furthermore, you can't even turn on the breaker for one week to accommodate your friends?! Do they shower in the dark up there too???)
And now, more recently, it seems that instead of showering in the dark, he's just decided to shower only once every week or two. So most of the time he smells like an unbearable mixture of sweat, cat pee, and dirty socks (I guess he cut power to the laundry room too).
Maybe I should anonymously leave instructions on his desk for how to make your own deodorant.
