Editors note: this is a weird post, I’m sorry.  Read it with more humor in mind than seriousness.  I’m really not trying to be a jerk, just funny (think Steve Martin)

I think prostitution is abhorable for various reasons, but this article about prostitution being paid for with gasoline cars puts the gas price debate into a weird perspective: Sex for Fuel.  We’ve not found ourselves using more or less gas at this stage in the game simply because we don’t do as much driving as the average household.  I work from my basement most of the time and our gas prices are usually just slightly under the national average.

Now that Bill Gates has stepped down as chief officer of whatever at Microsoft maybe he can put forth some of his humanitarian efforts in some petroleum related way.  I don’t know how that would help alleviate pain and suffering in third world countries, but it would at least reduce first world pain at the pump.

The government’s attempt to give you an early tax refund (even if you don’t need one) which they’re calling ‘economic stimulation’ is a farce for the most part: I may get $600.00 for my family, but I’ll be paying it back in my quarterly taxes. Oh, boy! Here’s a list of things that will not stimulate the economy and bust the intended use for the checks:

1. Stick the check in the bank
2. Pay the check back to the government as a quarterly tax payment the following quarter
3. Pay credit card debt (and not regain that debt on the card)
4. Go on an international spending spree
5. Buy Anime on eBay… from Japan
6. Frame the check and put it on your mantle like the head of a dead dear
7. Give it to a charity that will buy goats for Haitians
8. Invest in lead testing kits for the Chinese toys your children have
9. Drive to Canada and buy cheap meds
10. Use it to move to Canada where their looney money is worth more

What are you going to do that’s financially wise, but not necessarily intended by the Gov’t.?

I’m a whiner.  Here’s a goofy poem from my trip to the doctor this morning.

For symptoms I went to the doctor
Looking to get some help
What I told her just shocked her
Or that’s what I’m telling myself

She gave me a script for some ointment
Something to deal with signs
I’ll have to make another appointment
If my skin blisters or whines

Each trip to the doc is covered
A thirty dollar co-pay
“Happy Holidays,” she muttered
As I sadly shuffled away

Give me a diagnosis for the problem
Don’t just hand me a fix
I don’t want to mask yet a symptom
So that figures I’ve paid number six

This morning I went into the bank to withdraw cash for the envelope system and in doing so I broke the bank.  I don’t feel good about it, its not something that I intended to do.  Its embarrassing in front of other customers, the staff looks at you funny, and it delayed me on my scheduled errands.  Fortunately an employee was able to help me get my funds taken care of so that the cash could be stuffed into the envelopes.  What did I break?

Well, I didn’t break it literally, but the machine that dispenses cash was overwhelmed by the total volume of cash I asked to get out - seventy bills are apparently too much for the slot.

As I was putting on my socks this morning I had a recollection of a conversation I overheard one day when I was traveling through LAX airport. It was a conversation that caught me off guard but one that has stuck with me and now as a frugal blogger is relevant, but funny.

The Setup

I was in a terminal at LAX and I was waiting to get on a flight to head to Reno, NV, which was the closest airport to home at the time. I was sitting there probably tired since that’s usually the way airports make me feel when I saw a tall cowboy hat wearing man and his son walk past us, and then curve around to some seats behind us. I didn’t think much of their sitting there at the time and minded my own business. I try not to eaves drop too much lest I make it a habit or find out things I ought not to know. When you work around confidentiality long enough you begin to learn that knowing the dirt isn’t useful very often because its a liability.

However, I was at once awakened by the sound of the father chewing out his son for taking off his socks and boots. The son was scolded and told to put his socks and boots back on. What happened next is the part that has stuck in my mind over and over replaying to my own private comedy theater: the father scolded the son for putting his socks on the wrong way. Not the wrong foot, not inside out, not on his hands… but the wrong way. You see, there is a frugal way to put your socks on.

The correct method to put your socks on helps preserve the sock, make application to the foot simpler, and saves cowboy daddy hundreds of dollars in socks, I’m sure. To correctly apply the sock you must use your thumbs on the inside of the sock and roll it down into a very short tube in contrast to the long tube of a tube sock. You then put your toes into the small cup that you have created and slowly pull the sock up your leg unrolling the tube as you go. This serves two purposes: 1) It allows you to be a perfectionist about how your sock goes onto your foot and 2) it preserves the elastic bands in the sock so as to allow the sock to give you decades of good service. Assuming that a growing boy, which in this case was the case, wears the same size sock for decades.

I find this amusing, but do you think this is great frugality, normal for you, or super cheap?