Cheap

I’ve been thinking about one of those classic husband/wife conflict things and how my father’s cheapness is at least part of the root cause.

My father was cheap. Not that we had a lot of money anyway, but he was truly cheap. In college I actually wrote letters because he hated to pay for long distance calls. Growing up in Wisconsin my father’s classic line was:

What do I need a snow-blower for? I have three sons.

I’ve noticed the effect on me, because my wife is one of those people who keeps the refrigerator door open for a really long time. She’ll open the door, walk away to check something out and then come back, look some more, walk away again, etc.

Growing up, if I kept the fridge door open longer than 10 seconds my dad would yell about wasting electricity. So I notice that I am physically cringing as she leaves the door open that long.

I’ve closed it while she was doing one of her "walk away to check something" parts and she gets mad. "Hey, I’m looking in there". Since I am not stupid and I like being married, I have managed to refrain from the sarcastic, "from the other room?" response.

I genuinely am not worried about wasting money. It has to be merely pennies. But our fridge does display the temperature and it’s gone up ten degrees while she’s "looking in there". I may not care about the money, but I do like cold beer.

I’m not sure this blog has a point, other than we are what our parents made us…