Frugality

It isn’t something you choose to do, or to be, it just happens that way, it’s the things you learn when you are not even paying attention – you just grow up with it ingrained. Yes, it has its basis in not having many material things, in making use of every Skerik of everything, leaving no waste but it stays with you all through your life, even when the pre-conditions no longer exist. You are simply unable to change your approach – it seeps into your very DNA. 

So, that’s me, not ever wasting a drop and that’s why I always use the exact amount of washing detergent in the washing machine, the minimal amount of extra virgin in the sausages and eggs pan and the dishwashing detergent in the sink. It’s simply smart and responsible practice whether you are simply a Scrooge or whether you are a caring, sensitive and pro-active environmentalist. 

My wife is always lecturing me about it! She says: “You know, I wonder what good it does you, whether it actually saves you in the long run” and then proceeds to remind me of all the cents I have saved and the thousands of dollars I have “given away”. I honestly do not comprehend how a person can instantly recall every single incident of triviality that has occurred to someone else over a lifetime but she gets it absolutely spot on every single time (of course it is always the same trivial events!) Well, despite all the preaching, the trivial recollections and the “You surely, by now, realise?” (statement couched in the form of a question) it hadn’t come home to me until this morning when I was washing my toast and eggs dish and frying-pan. 

You see, in characteristic fashion for the past seven weeks, I have been washing the dishes each day in the same fashion. I rinse everything in the hottest water, straight down the sink. I then put the dishes to one side, put the plug in the sink, turn the hot water back on and dribble four drops of Morning Fresh into the water. It instantly turns the sink into a bath of froth into which I gently immerse the cutlery and dishes for a mandatory period (until the water become tepid enough to touch) before going about giving them the once over in foam and water before draining and wiping. Now the problem arose when the bloody detergent nozzle became blocked so I had to resort to unscrewing the lid and administering the four mandated drops manually before replacing the squirty nozzle that was malfunctioning. 

Now I must have been in a rush to retire watching the winter olympics closing ceremony at the Verona Arena (the absolute finest entertainment venue on this planet, built by human hands two thousand years ago and continuing to be utilised from then to this very day and beyond!) If you haven’t been there personally you owe it to yourself to make sure you do while you still can – not because it is going anywhere but because you might! Anyhow, back to the story.

You see, obviously distracted, I must have left the lid ajar because when I went to administer, manually, the four drops the whole bloody lid flew into the surging hot water, followed by the contents of half the bottle of detergent! All those drops of content that I had been religiously saving all this time, dozens and dozens – nay hundreds! – of individual events LOST in one instant! Now, if that isn’t a live example of what Cinzia has been saying all this time, I don’t know what is!