A regular Ebeneezer Scrooge.  A tightwad.  Or, in the words of my son, “As tight as the bark on a damn tree.”

I deserve this how?

Long time readers will know I am in semi retirement - I quit being a propietor of my own business, done with the rat race, headaches, contracts, worries - cashed in my chips, socked it away, and am now living off of the savings I didn’t lock down plus a 9-5 for cash flow, since I have “Fuck you” money.

It’s been good.  Re-enrolled in school for night/net classes.  But I realized that type-A, alpha Gonz was moving back to being “managment.”

Yuck.

So I got me a different gig, field service, and am off for product and process training next week.  I make arrangements to stay with someone for a night, then to a motel for the next 4.  The Super-8.  So what do I get?

“Damn, Dad.  Spend a goddamn nickel once in a while, will you?  The SUPER-8?  For real?  Surely you could move a couple steps up.  You’re as tight as the bark on a damn tree, you know that?

Now think about this shit.  I am going to get up, eat the free hot breakfast there, and go off all damn day, get fed lunch on site, eat out, go back to the room, watch TV for a while and read my manuals, sleep - then back up and do it over.

Yes, I could fly first class and rent a car.  I have a perfectly serviceable truck.  I call this “Wasting money.”

I am going to be in this room to sleep.  I have stayed at the fucking $200 a night place.  The bed is no better, and I will be asleep most the time - so I really won’t appreciate the “decor” and “Ambience.”  I will be dipped in shit if I will be ordering a $10 goddamn pancake from room service.  Why should I pay for some ritzy, half-assed, cold by the time I get it breakfast when I can walk through the breakfast bar and get it hot - for free? And all I can eat. Ooooh.  I have to make my own waffle and pour my own coffee.

I think I will live.

As I often like to say “That’s a vulgar display of power.”

They are expensing it.  I don’t care if it’s a $20 motel room, that would be eighty bucks I didn’t have to pay.  By not doing the $209 a night room, thats just shy of $850 I don’t have to pay.  By driving - it’s less convenient, ut between boarding and disembarking, and dealing with “Homeland Security” I bet I spend less time - it is only a couple hours away.  And vehicle rental - fugginay.  You rented even a beater lately?

Instead, I am getting paid mileage.

Now, if I was doing shit like ordering hot water and re-using coffee-teabags, yeah - I’d be a cheap sonofabitch. But I’m not - I’m not going on vacation, this is work.  Even with fuck-you money, I have agreed to do a job, and I work the job.  Which includes not blowing money on fancy hotel rooms, or plane tickets, especially when I have to fly first class as I just do not fit in coach.  They are paying for this.

And because I *COULD* afford - why?  To what end?

Why do my fucking kids want me to blow through their inheritance when I am perfectly happy to live a spartan lifestyle?  I don’t like a lot of upscale shit.  Dom Perignon?  I have put better vinegar on my fish.  All the shit that is “Upscale” is usually priced far more than it’s worth.  Kobe beef is good, but it is NOT $200 a fucking pound good.  If I want to spend a bunch of money on a steak, I’ll pay the $20 a pound for a hefty buffalo steak - I like it a lot fucking better.

Yeah - okay.  Abbey Ales and Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee are good.  The latter just barely, and then only if you know how to make it.  But very little else is.  It’s overpriced trendy crap.

Okay, the 50 year old MacCallan.  But that is IT.

Seriously, though - if I am going to buy white bread, the wal-mart brand is just as good.  Here’s a hint - Wonder makes the shit for Wal-Mart.  It’s the same fucking bread!  You think wal-mart has a factory down in Arkansas that makes their “Sam’s Choice” brand? No, and no, and hell fucking no.  Damn few name brands are that damn unique.  The few that are, if I like them, I buy.  Some of them I don’t like. “Zesta” crackers are as dry as a goddamn popcorn fart.

And I like diner/pub food.  And you get better, and more authentic if ethnic is your preference, from hole in the wall mom and pop places.  For a hell of a lot better price.  I had a steak dinner for under $45 last year in Chicago at a hole in the wall place, and I thought they’d have to wheel me out on a dolly I was so stuffed.  For two!  Including beer!

I made a small tool-kit to do minor house repairs - change a washer, things like that.  For the quick and dirty.  So what do I get?  My daughter snarking at me about what I always taught her about tools, yadda, yadda - Yeah.  I have them.  IN MY WORKSHOP.  If I am building a table or something big - no doubt.  If I am taking the cover off the vacuum cleaner, though, I am no going to get my 18 volt DeWalt power driver, especially not walking out to the barn for it, for one pissant screw.  Grab the cheap phillips head, off, clean, on.

And why the hell do I need an in home theatre?  My eyes and ears ain’t broke.  My 29 inch TV works, and I can see any show I want.  And hear it, too.  I’m not going to buy a $6000 + home entertainment system to watch Alton Brown on Good Eats.  The Super Bowl?  I have friends who bought that shit - I will bring my homebrew and take his hospitality.  I don’t watch enough TV to justify it, and I will be damned if I want sixty inches of The Magic Negro’s dumb ass in my living room if he comes on the news.

Fuck it.

I do not deserve to be called a skinflint.  I will have satisfaction.  You would think my son would know better by now.

You know - I have some nice shit.  But I trot it out when it is appropriate for it.  I don’t let just anyone know I have resources - I’m a private person for one, and two, back in the day I kept getting hit up for cash by fair-weather friends (Of course now, accessing it for anything but an emergency is a PITA, the price of keeping the tax man away).  Hell, I have kept it from women I have dated.  I have several degrees, and yeah - to a certain extent, the hardscrabble redneck image is one I cultivate. But a lot of it is because I like rednecks better.