Confessions of the Fru-gal

I am cheap.  I admit it.  I was cheap before it was chic.  I was cheap before extreme couponing.  I was cheap before internet shopping.  It’s almost an obsession.  If I were  a super hero I would be the Fru-gal.  My grandmother used to get irritated with me for telling people how much I paid for something.  She was a Nordstrom shopper.  I would go to Ross and score a kicky pair of boots and tell everyone they only cost 9 dollars on clearance. Yeah, I mean everyone.  Someone says nice boots and I can’t just answer Thank you.  I have this overwhelming need to tell them not only where I bought it but how much I paid.   I wore those boots as a badge of honor. The less I pay for something the more I value it.  I know there is no way I can replicate my find and therefore treasure my frugal acquisition.

Let me just say.  I don’t buy something just because it’s cheap.  If I did that I would be swimming in paisley poly blend TJ Maxx pant suits and “ imperfect” Delta Burke undergarments…and one should never swim in a pant suit…

I love cute cheap dresses and the discount stores are straight and to the point.  I go to the dress section, I go to my size and leaf through a hundred hideous wastes of fabric and occasionally find something to my liking. It’s rare that I find something  but sometimes I am lucky and move on to the next step.

I have to pretty much be in love with something to advance to the next step… the dreaded dressing room.  This is the place where surly women look you up and down with more scrutiny than TSA.  They count and recount your items and hand you a plastic number which is your ticket to enter a tiny little poorly lit room that smells vaguely like onions…and goat.  If you can manage to look halfway decent under the life draining light that is usually reserved for public schools and insane asylums then you know you have a winning item.

Next stop…the line.  This is the time to check my phone…or pretend to check my phone.  I am one of those people, despite all body language to the contrary that people feel the need to engage in conversation.  My cell phone is my best friend in situations like this. There should be one button that you push without having to look that just makes your phone ring.  I’m sure there is an app for that. The line looks painfully long but they are fast and you make it to the front just at the time where every customer needs a price check and half of the cashiers are on break. You wait awkwardly for someone to say next and the anxiety builds as you don’t want to be that one person, spacing out on your phone while the harried cashier is repeatedly shouting “Next person in line” and the people behind you are trying to decide whether to tap you on the shoulder or hope that you snap out of your cellphone coma. Yes.  I stress about these things.  It’s finally your turn…

In Seattle you are expected t have a reusable bag at every moment, your lack of planning results in butterfly effect where the sound of a cashier’s eye roll somehow causes a poor Venezuelan farmer to step off his path resulting in the death of a Chinese factory worker…or something like that. I pay my 5 cent bag tax and hope that my paper bag doesn’t disintegrate on the 8 block walk home. Upon exiting,  I smile at the security guard suddenly very self-conscious of every move I make, even though I have done nothing wrong.  I stand up straight, as if he is going to search my bags because of poor posture.

I’m out.

I made it.

It was not emotionally scarring as an afternoon at Build A Bear

So you see.  It’s not just the money saved.  I went thru battle!…well  maybe not “battle”  but certainly a “middle class white people inconvenience”  for my 12 dollar bargain. I’ll do it again.  Over and over.  I am a glutton for punishment and a sucker for a deal.