Third Generation Tightwad -or- “Half the Price and Twice as Big”

My eleven-year-old niece, Andrea, recently went on a field trip with her sixth-grade class. She lives in Orange County, California, and the plan for the day was to take the Metrolink train to downtown Los Angeles. Once there, the class explored famous landmarks such as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and Olvera Street (the ‘birthplace’ of Los Angeles).

Of course, souvenir shopping was also on the menu. My sister had given Andrea a certain amount of money to spend, and she was determined to make the most of it. While all the other girls were interested in acquiring parasols and paper flowers, Andrea had her heart set on a genuine authentic sombrero and guitar. After a bit of browsing, she found a great sombrero that she really loved-the only problem was that it was $20.00, and if she bought it she wouldn’t have enough money for the guitar as well. So she kept on looking.

Her frugal nature was richly rewarded. She finally found a much better deal from a street vendor. As she proudly told my sister, it was “half the price and twice as big” as her original choice. She immediately sealed the deal, handed over her $10.00, and promptly plopped the huge new sombrero on her head. She proudly wore her frugal find while touring the Cathedral, spiritual home to millions of Angelenos. (Oh yes, she also got the guitar!).

When my sister got home from work that evening, Andrea couldn’t wait to show her the sombrero. She eagerly opened the front door as my sister was walking up the driveway. As my sister approached, she couldn’t help but admire the hat. Printed on the front of the sombrero was the thrilling phrase “Viva Mexico”. But that wasn’t all. My sister’s unabashed admiration turned to unalloyed horror as Andrea spun around in order to give my sister the full effect of her spectacular bargain. The entire phrase was revealed as “Viva Mexico, !?#@$&s!”

My sister was fairly certain that last word was, er, not very nice, to say the least. She wasn’t absolutely certain however, and decided a phone call to my mother was in order. She called, my dad answered the phone, and my sister told him what my niece’s hat so proudly proclaimed. He chuckled and said “Hold on, let me get your mother.”

When my mom got on the phone my sister told her what the hat said and asked her if it really was as bad a word as she suspected. My mom is a very, VERY strait-laced Mexican lady. Yep, it was a bad word, a VERY bad word. And, boy-oh-boy was my mom mad. She told my sister to get in her car that instant, go back to downtown L.A. and give that evil miscreant street vendor a piece of her mind. How dare she sell that evil headgear to her granddaughter!

My sister kept asking my mom, “But what does it mean?” but my mom would only say it wasn’t really translatable into English. The literal translation is “goat”, but my mom wouldn’t admit to knowing exactly what it was the slang expression for. Finally, after much pressing, my mom would only say it was similar in sentiment to the insult “jerk”, only a million times worse. The next day, co-workers confirmed my sister’s worst fears by baldly spelling it out for her in plain English.

This true story is a perfect illustration of the uneven journey that can sometimes characterize the Frugal Life. Sometimes, you do get what you pay for. But I applaud my niece for being such a good steward of her resources, and at such a young age. If I’d been so careful with my funds at eleven years of age, I’d have a much bigger bank balance by now. But no matter when you start you Frugal Journey, the point is to not give up, even in the face of unexpected results.

Shame on you, evil miscreant street vendor, but, what the heck, we all got a great (free!) laugh out of it. (Except for my mom. Whooo - she is really mad!) (And, oh! - imagine! Andrea was walking around the spiritual home to millions of Catholic Angelenos with that thing on her head! I think that also made my mom super mad, because she is a very good Catholic, too!).

Of course, being a Third Generation Tightwad, my young niece refuses to waste her purchase by throwing it away. Instead, she’ll put a scarf around the hat to cover the offensive phrase. She can then safely wear it in polite company.

On the CHEAP EATS front, this is what Chazz and I had for dinner last night:

Easy, homemade pizza. The crust was made in my bread machine (very easy, and lazy; used only 21/4 cups flour for two thin crusts), the sauce was made from one can of tomato sauce & spices, and toppings were bulk purchased mozzarella, one left-over chopped up chicken breast (from our Memorial Day BBQ), 1/2 lb ground turkey sausage, and 1/4 chopped onion. We made two, ate one, and I will freeze this one for dinner at a later date. Yummy!

Happy Birthday to my brother-in-law! He is a great guy and a great father. Your present is on the way!