It's Still Good!

The other night after dinner I was loading the dishwasher when I heard K-boy shout, "Oh gross! Abbey get down!" Apparently the evil kitties had planned a sneak attack and jumped onto the dining room table the moment we had all left the room. There were still a few items that hadn't been cleared yet. Abbey had been sniffing at the tub of soft butter. The brand new, just opened tub of soft butter.

I saw K-boy grab said tub and hold it over the trash can. It was my turn to scream, "Noooo!", as I grabbed it out of his hand. The kids lined up to stare at me in disbelief as I took a spoon and scraped the top inch of butter out of the tub, and put the remainder back in the fridge. Seriously, have you looked at the price of butter lately?

I didn't think much about it until the next morning when I was eating my reheated, store-brand, Cream of Wheat substitute. Suddenly it dawned on me. I'm turning into my parents.

As a kid, I remember watching in horror as my dad would drink milk that had that funny, almost turned smell to it, and eat the anemic looking tomatoes that we discarded from our burgers in restaurants. Instead of buying us snow boots, my mom would save bread bags to put on our feet under our rain boots when it snowed. They were known to re-use tea bags.

Hmmm. Is this something that occurs naturally as one ages, or are parents more prone to develop this extreme frugality? I'd guess it to be the latter. Kids waste a lot! Crusts on bread, large portions of their meals, soap, shampoo, toothpaste. There's no end to what they thoughtlessly discard. It's painful to watch all that hard-earned money thrown away. I feel a need to stem the flow of waste somehow.

So I'll probably continue to cut the bruises off of apples and eat the brown bananas. They're sweeter anyway. Someday, it may take several decades, but someday my kids will understand. Now if you'll excuse me I've got some coffee to reheat.