the dark side of getting the most for your money


i am not a bargain shopper. to be honest, i am not a shopper. period. when sarah is lucky enough for me to pick up anything at the store/cvs/wherever, i am going to be in and out. my mission, if i have chosen to accept it, will be to march into the establishment with list in hand or in my head, get what i am there to get, and find the nearest express lane checkout. more often than not, these trips aren't even for the o'kelley house. they are for limbo. early on sunday mornings, i'll travel to the huffman wal-mart looking for something quick and easy for breakfast. i'll come up to the checkout line with a package of ground coffee (starbucks or dunkin' donuts), a few packages of pop-tarts (strawberry, blueberry, s'more), maybe some mini-doughnuts (powdered white) and two half gallons of something else to drink (orange juice, milk, chocolate milk...two of those three). i might throw in a package of gum or an impulse disney movie, and i am out. quick and easy. i couldn't tell you what brand of drink i bought. i can't tell you if i got the better deal on coffee or the one that was on sale that month. i just don't care. never have. if i am lucky, i never will.

sarah, on the other hand, is a coupon-er. she is not a freak about it, but she does clip some coupons. for everything. we'll be sitting down to a relatively nice and peaceful dinner out at ruby tuesday or some other kid-friendly joint and she'll exclaim, "ooh. i think i have a coupon." inevitably, i roll my eyes and ask her to stop searching for it.

"seriously, the waiter is coming right now! please...put. that. AWAY!"

saving money is great i am sure. sarah has taken over the lion's share of the money responsibilities in our home, main reason being i had a pretty gnarly habit, when single, of not paying a whole lot of attention to things like "due dates" and "amount owed." more often than not, i just paid attention to the "minimum amount" and would send it in around the same time the next month's bill came in. no problem, right? the only exception to that rule was my rent, and i am proud to say i was never a day late in my bachelor life with that check.

anyway, back to the point, saving money is great i am sure. but there are a few things in this world that are worth not skimping on. mind you, i haven't found many of these things. we'll be eating dinner and afterwards, sarah will say something like, "that was the off-brand this or that..." or "those chips were low-fat and on sale. could you tell a difference???", and i'll be like, "sonuvabitch!!!...no....but don't do that again!!!" she's sneaky like that.

most of the time, she coupons or buys healthy or goes low on stuff at the store and i never know the difference.

until a couple months ago.

when she bought the prison toilet paper.

i am sure the prison toilet paper purchase was my fault. i am all the time complaining/whining about how freaking quick she and the girls go through a roll of toilet paper.

"daddy. can you get me some toilet paper???", says one of the girls sitting on the pot.

"i got you some yesterday, baby."

"i know. it's gone."

"whatthef...gone??? how is it gone? i haven't even gone to the bathroom since i put it in there!!!!"

"i don't know." "can you bring some toilet paper, please?"

so, i am sure sarah heard these types of exchanges and thought to herself, "alright. i hear you. let's see what we can do about this."

at some point, she went to what had to have been wal-mart (there's no way publix would sell this abomination) and bought the prison toilet paper. maybe she was wowed by the fact that the package was guaranteed to "last seventeen times longer than average roll of toilet paper" or that 24 rolls cost 89¢, but she got it. and let me tell you, the last couple of month's worth of trips to the can have been unpleasant.

the paper, itself, is paper thin and rough all at the same time. you would think based purely on how thin it was that a roll would exhaust itself quickly. but, it must be wrapped around that cardboard cylinder tighter than the core of a baseball, and it doesn't. it doesn't exhaust itself quickly. it lasts for freaking ever. each trip to the toilet, i cringed. i'd finish my business, clean myself up and march out of the bathroom as fast as i could to bitch about the experience.

"PLEASE don't get the prison toilet paper anymore. what have i done to deserve this???"

"oh, it's not that bad."

right. my guess is that sarah was just doing her thing at work to avoid the prison toilet paper at home.

after what seemed like years, we finally were ready to buy a new package of toilet paper.

"seriously, please get the good stuff. please don't get the prison toilet paper."

"whatevs."

in spite of dismissing me, though, sarah did, in fact, get the good stuff. extra soft. very fluffy. wonderful to feel. after i finished this morning, i wished for more output, if only to savor the reward after.

saving money is great i am sure, and i am certain my wife does an excellent job, and i bet she even does it in part so that she doesn't have to bitch at me about going to subway three times a week while she is forcing down a lean cuisine. i love that she cares that much for me. and our family.

i do hope, moving forward, that she will never skimp and buy the prison toilet paper again. it was far too unkind to the area of my body that deserves a lotta love and a lotta concern.

excuse me. i am going to the bathroom. i don't even have to go. i am just going to wipe for fun.

ewwwww.