When I graduated high school and moved into an apartment with a friend, it was a time that I’ll never forget. Now we had absolutely no extra money, but we did have money to do the important stuff and man oh man did we have a good time! In the summer we would rent a canoe and go out on the Turkey River at least once a week. We really thought that we were pretty good, but honestly that could have been the refreshments that we had along the way. We also got along just fine for food because I got eggs from my Mom and my roommate always had popcorn.. so you see we never starved. And for some reason we always had money to go out on the weekends with our friends. But now that I think of it, I’m thinking that we really were poor. But not all of it was our fault. We kept having these cute salesmen come around and between my roommate and I we ended up with pots and pans, knives, china, and some pretty expensive glasses. Now when I say these glasses were expensive.. I mean over 32 years ago they were $50 a piece. (I never mentioned that we were too smart did I?) I think we were put on the secret list that salesman have and if they smiled and were cute – well you can sure bet we probably would buy whatever they were selling. And the dumbest part of the things that I bought is that the knives are so sharp that you literally could cut your finger off so they are still in their container. The demonstration that they did was to cut a really thick rope. At the time I thought, well if it cut a rope then it should be good in the kitchen right? Yea, it almost cut through a cutting board the first time that I used it. And the china and glasses? Wayyyy too expensive to use and possibly break so they are still in their original boxes. I guess someday I’ll get them out, but for now they’re still stored up in the closet. So there we were, living off popcorn, scrambled eggs, and beer. But like I said, at the time we didn’t mind. When things got really tough we would take the cans from the weekend party that we usually hosted and brought them to the redemption store and get cash for some groceries or rent. And I can honestly say we never missed paying a bill on time!
I think that everyone needs to go through the ‘poor’ stages of their life when they are just getting out on their own. Otherwise they won’t know what it is to really appreciate the things that are luxuries and not just expectations. I remember our first washer and dryer at our farm. For the first while we had to bring our things to town and use the laundromat. Every week I’d spend hours just hanging out in the building by myself just waiting for the clothes to get dry. And when we finally bought ours with making payments -Holy Cow! It was just awesome!! Even now when I do laundry 30 years later I still really appreciate having our own washer and dryer in our house.
So this past weekend I was going through some boxes and found an old tax return when I was living with my friend. I’m really glad that I found this because it really made me laugh when I saw it. I sure wish I could remember why I never cashed it in. Take a look how much I would have taken the cash. Too funny!!