Two weeks without shopping have flown by. It's too cold to go to the mall anyhow. Of course, not shopping does not mean not spending. I dropped $450 getting the cats examined, vaccinated and supplied with little packets of flea treatment to put on the backs of their little necks once a month for the next 6 months. Yesterday I spent $200 getting the little skins tags burned off my chest. They sat in a ring under my bra and complained. The insurance won't pay for this because it's cosmetic. Cosmetic? Who looks under my tits? I'm just trying to avoid the itching and irritation. Today I had a barium swallow x-ray of my esophagus and stomach. Apparently I have acid reflux disease. The insurance may not pay for this either as I have not yet met my deductible for the year. Someone once said, getting old is not for sissies. It's not cheap, either.
Ogden Nash wrote the following:
A Penny Saved Is Impossible
The further through life I drift
The more obvious it becomes that I am lacking in thrift.
Now thrift is such a boon to its possessor that years ago they began to tax it,
But it is a bane to him that lacks it
Because if you lack it you will go into a shoppe and pay two dollars for a gifte.
But if you possess it you find something just as good for a dollar fifte.
A penny is merely something that you pull several of out of your pocket before you find the nickel you need for a telephone call, if thriftlessness is in your blood,
Whereas to the thrifty a penny is something to be put out at stud.
Thrifty people put two-cent stamps on letters addressed to a three-cent zone,
And thriftless people on the other end pay the postage due and the thrifty people chuckle and rub their hands because the saving on every six letters represents a year’s interest on a dollar loan.
Oh that I were thrifty, because thrifty people leave estates to delight their next of kin with;
Oh that I were thrifty, because then not only would I have money in the bank to pay my bills, but I could leave the money in the bank because I wouldn’t have run up the bills to begin with;
Oh that I were not a spendthrift, oh then would my heart indeed be gladsome,
Because it is so futile being a spendthrift because I don’t know any places where thrift could be spent even if I had some.
