I had a job where I had to go round replacing all the bogrolls when they got to about halfway.
They were hygienically encased in big lockable perspex holders.

We were supposed to discard the half-used rolls, which were still as big as new normal posh ones. Single ply, but good quality.

I soon started smuggling them home, often up to five a shift, and the house filled up with the bastards. I stored them in the bathroom, under stairs, under the bed...

That was a couple of jobs and a year ago and we still haven't bought a bogroll yet.

The time is coming, though - we could be on our last suitcase full.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 13:49, 7 replies)

Borderline miserly rail firm
This is not too miserly I suppose, caring for the environment as well blah, blah, but the moment some bright spark at an airline wonders if they can try the same thing, is the moment I never fly again.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1052067/Rail-firm-orders-drivers-turn-engines-downhill-runs-bid-slash-fuel-costs.html
(turtles head is touching cloth poked a dwarf on the forehead at, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 13:43, 10 replies)

I change
from a tight arse to cash splasher all the time for example: if your with a group of tight arsed mates, its quite easy to be one yourself, otherwise everyone will sponge off you.

However if your out with the generous kind of mates, it will set a rule, and everyone will try and pay for everything.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 13:35, 1 reply)

This is a good one
I once worked on a 12 month placement at a large agrochemicals plant in Huddersfield. I loved Yorkshire, it was so much more friendly than 'darn sarf' where I hail from, but they had a capacity for tightness up there which would put the Scots to shame. This one is the pick of the lot:

A couple of blokes from two adjoining labs wanted to go to the Top Gear show one year. Thing is, neither of them knew the other one was going. So it was someone's bright idea to bring them both together. They decided they would share a car with bloke A driving and bloke B offering to 'help with petrol'.

Both had a good day at, to my mind the most arse-clenchingly tedious day out ever, and were travelling home when B asked A how much money he thought was reasonable for the journey. 'I'll have a think about it and let you know tomorrow' was the reply.

The next day B comes in to our bay in the lab brandishing an 'invoice' from A whereupon he had broken down all the costs associated with the journey.

It was all there, starting and finishing mileage and estimate of cost of fuel -halved of course. Then half of 1/366th of car tax, insurance, MOT, estimated wear and tear and of course half of 1/366th of AA membership. Some wag said 'give him some credit, at least he accounted for the leap year'.

I shit you not...
(mersault, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 13:19, Reply)

I'd tell my story
but all that typing would contribute to my keyboard wearing out, and those things don't grow on trees you know.
(Axeman Jim, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 13:12, Reply)

"Glass of water girl"
There is a girl that drinks in my local who is known to all the staff as "Glass of water girl". She'll arrive at about 10 on a Friday night just when things are starting to get busy and order a glass of water before dancing off into the crowd.

Fair enough you may think, good hydration is important if you're going to be dancing energetically after all.

If only that was the case, instead she'll then proceed to systematically work her way around the dance floor dancing with each guy just as he seems to be finishing his drink and accepting their offer to buy her one.

While taking advantage of guys’ stupidity to get pissed every Friday is quite ingenious she does come across as very mercenary about it.

So Simone, you might be a nice girl but to us you’ll always be Glass of water girl
(bill, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 13:06, 3 replies)

Not my dad, thank god
A bird I knew a while ago had a tight father. Seriously tight.
He had a regular 9-5 job, but to help pad his retirement, he got a job delivering the daily paper in the mornings. He was up at 5am to do so.
Now that's not too bad, I suppose, but when he was finished his paper route, he would bicycle down to the Library to read the paper HE JUST DELIVERED TO A HUNDRED PEOPLE. Because it was free to read it at the Library.
(w4I4q1O1 was hard at work on, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 13:04, 1 reply)

dumped...
myself and girlfriend split up the day before each of our birthdays, and then get back together the day after.

saves a fortune on presents :)

works well at christmas too.





(throws another small lump of coal on the fire)
(nappy rash, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 12:42, Reply)

open sauce! tales from a tightwad
i bought a shitty windows laptop (i couldn't afford another mac) and i am currentyl stocking it with graphics software

i'm not working in the industry right now, but i like to play and do the odd job. as such, i'm fucked if i'm gonna spend ££££ on loads of adobe software, no matter how muhc i might like it.

the answer?

photoshop? Gimp- £0
illustrator? inkscape- £0
office? openoffice.org - £0
cubase? audacity - £0
total saving?
£1826 accordin to current listings on amazon.

i could buy a macbook pro for that! :D nice.
(UppityDamnPrimate LET'S OPEN THIS F*CKING PIT UP, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 12:38, 12 replies)

I have a friend
who never pays for a round when we go to the pub as she says she doesn't earn that much working in a fetish club as a submissive.

Well, she's always complaining that she's strapped for cash.

/coat.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 12:32, 12 replies)

False Economies
Not a story about me, but something that makes me really cross whenever I think about it.

There's a demonstrable link between quality of diet and emotions. From a personal experience (I was away from home and so had to live on takeaways for 3-4 days), I found that even a short-term diet of eating processed crap made me constantly naggingly hungry (I wasn't getting essential trace nutrients), but also I was short-tempered and tired all the time and it struck me that this must be how most people feel all the time; irritable, short-tempered, prone to sparking off at small inconveniences. It certainly goes some way to explaining Stevenage town centre on a Friday night.

About 5 years ago, a study was carried out into the diet of people in Prison. Normally, a lot of prison food is cheap crap and junk food- after all, they're prisoners and they don't deserve better, right? Well, for some months, instead of the usual slop one prison fed their prisoners well - fresh food, freshly prepared, with a lot of fruit and veg. Incidence of violence in that prison fell by almost 80% over the period, and short-term recidivism after release fell also.

Then a cost benefit analysis study was carried out into the additional cost of the food against how many more prison guards would be needed to achieve that sort of fall in in-prison violence, and it was found to be cheaper to hire more guards than feed people well.
As a result, the prison went back to feeding their inmates slop and hired a few more rough lads with sticks to keep a lid on the place.

Apply the lesson learned here across not just every prison, but every school and hospital that budgets 50p per person per meal and consider the rise in violent crime and emotional problems - and the end cost when policing and medicine for them are considered.

False economies? Talk about it, Mr. Scrooge.
(davywavy, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 12:28, 7 replies)

Water Wanker!
In my younger days when I used to go out on a regular basis with my mates there was one guy who would always buy the drinks last in the hope that this would save him a round by the end of the night.

The worst thing was that when it was his round he would eventually grudgingly get the drinks in for everyone but would get himself a pint of water.

He would also take home the crusts of any unfinished pizzas at close of play.

His nickname which he never understood was "crime" because.....
(Harold's hip man!!, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 12:22, 1 reply)

Leftovers
I'm not sure if this is tightfisted or just plain odd. I suspect the latter.

My parents always used to do a roast for dinner on Sundays (and, for all I know, they still do). This meant that Monday dinner would be something involving leftovers from the joint. This is all well and good (and the task of doing something creative with the remains played its part in my learning how to cook).

What I never understood, though, was my parents' insistence that we ought to leave enough of the roast during its first use to provide for leftovers, as though they'd become an end in themselves rather than a useful, accidental, and economical resource.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 12:17, 10 replies)

Lottery winners
They really get on my wick when they win a massive amount and then say,

"I'm just going to buy my council house, maybe a new(?) secondhand Volvo, a weekend in Bognor and I'll keep my job as a dinner lady."

What?

Why play the lottery?

Use whatever you need and give the rest to charity (or me).

Granted, they may not have been terribly affluent before winning and probably had to be tight with money and can't get out of that way of thinking.
But now? Ten million pounds! Get it into your thickheads that the world is your oyster, you can do all those things you've ever dreamt of, you're not poor any more, you don't need to be tight with money ever again.

It's no good being the richest person in the graveyard.
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 12:12, 11 replies)

I'm as tight as a ducks arse me
I love to save money and you will often find me at the "reduced" shelf in a supermarket contemplating whether a half price tube of toothpaste is worth the stress of wondering for the next few months each time I clean my teeth why it was missing the box in the first place.

However, you only ever buy cheap toilet paper once. As Johnny Cash sang, "It burns burns burns, that ring of fire".

once again I have absolutely nothing of value to add to this QOTW, I was going to say how I have never bought a tv or a mobile phone because my friends have more money than sense and give me thier "old" ones, but who gives a shit?
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 12:11, 2 replies)

My Landlord
His name is Murray and works for JDR property services in the granite city of Aberdeen. I'm telling you this as a warning to anyone who may have/be dealing with him, and I think he's a twat.

I moved into a flat at the start of the year and soon noticed several things, rotting window frames, leaky roof and a washing maching that had a split personality.

Anyway, he promises to fix these thing as the year goes on as "Out of the 12 flats I own, this one is in the worst state". I asked for the washing machine to be fixed a while ago, 3 months later and I get a call saying I have a new washine machine. Bollocks, its a second hand job from a charity shop. Asked for a draughty window to be fixed, 6 months later I'm informed the window has been fixed. Info for you Murray, cocooning a window frame in silicon sealant so its sealed shut and can't open so I cant vent the vile smell left behind, DOES NOT constitute fixing it! Golf clap for that man! The roof still leaks and now he wants to put the rent up for next year.

Tight git. I'm gonna leave a steaming 3 coiler in the lounge when I leave.
(Krizla6.9, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 12:10, 8 replies)

My father
was renowned for being a little tight fisted. he wouldn't replace anything, nor throw anything out until such times as it had either expired in spectacular fashion (mostly electrical) or grown hair (food)
He is reknowned for prowling and lurking at the discount sections of supermarkets prior to closing time, hunting for discounted yellow label stuff.

However, my two most most memorable instances of his miserly behavior that have stuck in my mind have to do with his drill and also the 3 year escapade with the electrical meterbox.

He purchased a black and decker electrical drill back whenever I was a child. It cost him a (then) whopping £40. He still has it - this was from over twenty five years ago. It has been mended, many many times.

The clutch is knackered - drills have been known to either spin out entrirely, or, as you are drilling slowly dissapear backwards into the main body of the drill. Blue sparks are not an uncommon sight whilst it's in use and he has also taped up the handle with insulation and gaffer tape as he has had the occasional jolt delivered up his arm on more than one occasion. The hammer action turns itself on and off with random abandon - which led to some quite funny scences as he was drilling through tiles in the new bathroom.

The chuck key is completely bald and the on/off 'lock' button always sticks on, so you have to hit the drill casing against something hard to turn it off.

Despite all this he point blank refuses to buy another one, as "they don't build them like that anymore!"

The other instance was with the electricty meterbox. In our old house (about 15-20 years ago) the meter box was directly in front of the back door, bolted to the wall. Behind this wall we had the "heater cuboard" containing the old economy seven heater, all the family coats and all the house cleaning stuff, brushes etc, basically a smallish storage room about 2m x 3 on the bottom floor.

My father, an engineer for Michelin at the time, had installed a great big 30 Amp switch with a handle, kinda like a large door handle on the front that made a very satisfactory 'clunk' when turned, directly behind the meter box - but on the other side of the wall. What this switch did was basically switch the electricity supply from peak to off peak.

This was wired straight off the back of the main meter, my father had accessed this by going straight through the wall behind it so that none of the lead seals had been disturbed or broken on any of the metering equipment.

We used this for about three years until we eventually got our economy seven replaced with oil. In the last six months or so we had the electricity men about about six times to examine the meter as our bills were always on the low side, never abused, just low.

Thankfully never once did they go in to cupboard behind the meter though. My mother was a nevous wreck by the time we got it changed...


We still have the switch box in the shed somewhere - it came with us when we moved in case we needed it again...
(uk_viper stopped lurking on, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 12:03, 8 replies)

Wedding
Last night I went out for dinner with a friend who's getting married in a couple of weeks.

One of her recommendations for the reception is that her guests all smuggle in their own booze to avoid having to pay the hotel's bar prices.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 11:58, 6 replies)

I think I'm quite tight...
(stop sniggering at the back there).

It's been hammered into me that one should never waste anything. I'm not from a poor family, but my parents both were, and therefore are very good about saving money. After seeing my father tuck quite happily into mouldy dates, use squidgy lemons to make lemonade so sour it makes your eyes bleed, and drink half a jug of gravy so as not to have to throw it away, I've got the thrifty bug.

On music tours, the musicians get given a "per diem" to spend on food. However, most hotels do a buffet-style breakfast, consisting of cereals, fruit, ham, cheese, bread and yoghurts. Simply fill up on cereal, and make sandwiches out of the cheese/ham, and nick as many bits of fruit and pots of yoghurt as possible. Voila! Lunch and supper is taken care of, leaving one's per diem for the really important stuff: alcohol.

If I go to a gig (and I do go to quite a few), I tend not to drink too much. The beer is always overpriced and shit, and I'd rather enjoy the music relatively sober, and without having to dash to the loo every so often.

I buy most of my books and bags at Oxfam. There's a chain of shops called "The Book Warehouse" or something like that: they sell the Wordsworth Edition series of classic novels: 1 for two pounds, or 3 for a fiver, so I can get my literature fix there if Oxfam only has Jackie Collins on sale.

I don't like putting the heating on, when I have a lovely selection of wooly jumpers and thick socks that will do just as well. I turn all the lights off whenever I leave the room. I always prefer buying the shop's own version of basics, if they're as good as the expensive version (Tesco's chopped tomatos, kidney beans, rice etc). I don't eat out at expensive restaurants at all often (if we do eat out, we tend to go for dim sum, or to the local pizza place, which happily happens to be very good indeed).

Without fail, the day after I get back I pay the rent and put most of my money into savings, allowing myself a strictly governed amount of money to live on for the month. If I need to buy something expensive, I transfer the exact amount from my savings, and then "pay myself back" by adding the money back to my savings, a little bit each month.

However: I will always get my round in. I can afford to get nice presents for my friends and family. I can treat Mr Bob to lovely meals at expensive restaurants every so often (and he does the same for me). I invest in good pictures by emerging artists. The expensive clothes that I buy are well-made, well-looked-after, and last for ages. I've saved myself a respectable amount of money over the last 3 years, which is going to be a deposit for when I finally buy a house. Mr Bob and I share a bedroom in a flat (two other people live there as well, in their own rooms). It's crowded, but we pay very little rent (amazing in zone 2 in London), and restrict ourselves to buying only things that we definitely need, instead of splashing out on junk.

Yes, I'm thrifty, but I'm not inhuman about it.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 11:46, 11 replies)

Starting Early
As a teenager, a friend of mine showed that he had been given sound fiscal advice drawn straight from the school of Ebeneezer.

We have all been in the situation where we have taken a few pence from a friend in order to be exact rather than "break" a twenty.

Well, with Paul, the following conversation was typical, rather than unusual. He didn't like breaking into twenties either.

Paul: Can you lend (meaning "give") me 5p?

Me: Why?

Paul: Because I want to buy a half of orange & water and I don't want to break into this twenty p piece


Tight get.

There's the bloke who (in the days of smoking in pubs) used to charge people 2p for using his lighter, but he's another (very long) story & I'm only new, so I'm not pushing my luck....
(Worthless wishes he had the brains of a pigeon, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 11:44, Reply)

Tight-fisted or just bone idle?
My family ended up in the unfortunate position of being forced to socialise with another family because my sister and I had coincidentally been sent to the same primary school as their revolting kids, who were, coincidentally, the same sort of age.

There are several entertaining examples of this family basically taking advantage of our better nature - I admit, I'm not sure whether this is due to tightfistedness or due to their pathological ability to "use" people wherever possible. Still, one story sticks out...

When I was still but a prepubescent Crow, my family were on holiday down in the south of France. And very nice it was too.

Unfortunately, it transpired that this family were also taking a holiday down in the south of France, along with some other friends. We were cordially invited to go and visit them - "why don't you come and see us at the campsite? We'll have a barbecue."

And so we drive for what must have been nearly an hour to go and meet them at the time they suggest, to find that they've only just got out of bed. It quickly becomes apparent that the useless husband hasn't even unpacked the barbecue. Nor have they bought any food.

So, my mother ends up heading down to the shop with the wife of said family to obtain some food. Wife picks up a pack of sausages - "do you think this will do?"

My mother resists the urge to yell "Bloody hell, woman, we've got two families plus your other friends to feed here," and simply replies, "well, Crow could probably eat that by himself," before pointedly putting another pack into the basket. (I'm not sure, but I suspect they may even have split the cost of the food.)

Meanwhile, back at the campsite, my sister and I have been beset by their objectionable children. Believe me, this was not fun.

And not far away, it becomes apparent the Useless Husband can't work out how to assemble the barbecue, and is therefore just stood there watching my father do it whilst drinking beer and cracking weak jokes with his friend.

So when Matris Corvae and Wife finally return, at least the influx of food draws the attention of The Revolting Children, who start to kick up a god-awful racket along the lines of "when's lunch?", but thank the almighty they've been distracted from my sister and me.

Right, so Useless Husband had better light the barbecue, hadn't he?

Christ on a bike, he doesn't know how to start a bloody fire.

I kid you not: he quite happily stood around and drank more beer whilst my father lit the barbecue and cooked the sausages. Of course, he's one of those infuriating people who will wait until the coals are glowing nicely, and the meat's starting to brown on one side before finally leaning in to say,
"Can I help at all?"

Conclusion? We weren't invited over there for any hospitality. We were invited over there to cook their bloody lunch for them, half of which I think we subsidised, and provide someone else to entertain their Revolting Children.

Apologies for length. Apologies for deviating. I shall now breathe out.
(LongJohnBaldry, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 11:36, 6 replies)

My nan...
Years ago, I guess I was about 12, I went to visit my Nan for dinner, but for some reason I was running late, so by the time I let myself in, she was already eating, and, honestly, this plate of meat she was eating was huge, absolutely huge, and my Nan was only a skinny old thing. I actually commented on the size of her meal.

‘I know, but by the time I got in, I was so hungry I felt like I could eat a horse’ she said.

And to be fair, judging by the size of the plate she had, I almost believe that she actually was.

It seemed kind of odd though, because she’d been shopping with my Mum that afternoon and my mum had taken her to lunch at some chain tacky steakhouse thing, Bernies Grill or whatever and had come home moaning that my Nan had had the largest, most expensive steak on the menu. She said something like ‘I don’t know how she did it, but I may as well have just bought her the whole cow’.

Although thinking back, she always did have a voracious appetite, I remember when I was younger we’d been to a Jamaican market somewhere around Brent Cross or somewhere and she’d gone to a food stall and ordered a massive goat curry. At the time I found the idea of goat curry repulsive, but she scoffed it all down in seconds, literally just opened her throat and it was gone.

Still, I shouldn’t have been surprised that she ate the curry given that she lived near a Korean restaurant that was widely rumoured to sell dog meat if you had the right connections, and apparently my Nan did, or at least claimed she did, cos she was always bragging about eating it.

What with that and her willingness to eat take away from the cheapest Chinese on the street, I guess there was nothing that phased her. You know the type of take away I mean, where everyone believes that the serve cat instead of chicken.

What’s absurd is that she also had a taste for the finer things. If someone else was paying she loved nothing better than a stuffed pheasant or some other game bird. She could easily eat a whole one.

My favourite story though, was when she was on holiday somewhere exotic and came back saying she’d eaten tarantula. Christ, my stomach churned at the thought of eating a spider.

Shit, sorry, I am waffling, the point is, despite her food extravagances, she was as tight as a gnats proverbial, she refused to spend even the slightest amount of money on basic hygiene products for example, so her house was this filthy fly ridden dump of a place. Really disgusting, always things buzzing around your head, had to keep swatting them away from your mouth and stuff, it was grim.

When she died after, basically, eating herself to death, it was discovered that she had a tapeworm, hence her appetite.

And how had she contracted that tapeworm?

She’d swallowed a fly.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 11:34, 18 replies)

Food - my mum 2
Before the split (see previous post) my mum was a legend for not allowing us to eat much (it must be the reason i'm so fat now from not being able to stop myself).

School lunch was jam sandwichs and orange squash every day... for 8 years. When ever I complained that I don't even like jam or orange squash, I got smacked for making it up just 'to eat cheese and meat and other posh food'.

This wasn't even branded food, we were talking Tesco value bread, jam and squash. Total cost 50p for the whole of all 3 let alone spreadout across a number of lunches.

As I got older I used to have to cook my own meals. One day I remember being hauled into the kitchen to talk about my latest crime.

I had dared, yes dared to use a whole tin of Tesco value beans (price 6p or so) for me and my 3 brothers meal. I should have used 3/5 of the tin saving the rest for my mum and dad's meal.

After that I made sure I never used more than a half tin between the 3 of us to ensure not getting a similar telling off.

Once I was older and financially independent I suddenly realised what a tight cow she was and every time I made food left the correct money for what I ate on the side.

Rereading this, I think I may have been abused as a child. No wonder I was so thin...
(Wooden meal is. Or is he?, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 11:28, 1 reply)

My ex
used to Nanny for a rich (and quite famous) sports personality.

She'd been working for the family for a number of years, taking the kids out to the beach, to our house to play, etc... when one day, she discovered she was pregnant.

She duly informed her employer, and guess what?

Yep, rather than pay the wages that she would have been entitled to for the period of her maternity leave, they accused her of stealing.

Stealing what, you may ask?

A child's coat. A 9 year olds child's coat.

The eldest of the kids she looked after, had one day simply left it at our house. They were always leaving something, toy car, train whatever.

The mother had seen said coat one day whilst visiting our house shortly after being informed of the pregnancy, and decided it was theft. Like the misses was going to wait 9 years to give our child a second hand coat?? She (and I) had (and have) not ever stolen anything from anywhere or anyone, ever.

I had a 'quiet' word, in which I may have insulted various friends of theirs (namely, one Lord who was in prison not so long ago), and they eventually relented, realising the futility of attempting such a morally void trick to avoid paying what they were legally bound to.

Tight, completely amoral, bastards.

...and she went back to work for them AFTER our first child was born!
(dchurch bah, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 11:20, 2 replies)

Graduation tightness - my mum 1
The day of my first exam in my final year my mum and dad split up with no warning.

We'd found out my mum hadn't been paying any bills, my dad had a couple of days to leave the house that was being repossessed, etc.

Fast foward a few weeks and it was graduation day and being the first person from my family to go to uni my nan (mum's mum)was a mandatory invite which meant inviting both my mum and my dad.

They didn't talk to each other obviously, I was glad they were there and stumped up the £40 per person charge as my mum said she'd pay me back later.

After the graduation all my friends around me are getting gifts from their familys and going for posh meals.

We go to Weatherspoons as they were doing 2 for 1 meals.

Mid meal, my mum stands up and says how proud of me she is and how proud my grandad would have been had he been around still and pulls an envelope out of her bag and passes it to me. Then hugs me and tells me it's one of the happiest days of her life to see me graduate.

I open the envelope... it's a piece of paper with 'Well done' written on it and some clip art people stuck around the edge she knocked up in 10 minutes in word.

I never saw the £40pp ticket money, never got the £4k back and I paid for the meal in Weatherspoons as no one else had any cash.

So on one of the happiest days of her life, she didn't pay for tickets, food or even spend more than a token effort to celebrate. Tight cow.

The irony of all this is that all the time I was at uni she moaned like hell cos I wasn't doing a proper job (I worked part time) and I was only paying £200 a month rent from the £250 I earnt a month. And that she had stolen over £5,000 from me when she scarpered... and opened a catalogue account in my name and ran up £800 bill she didn't pay.
(Wooden meal is. Or is he?, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 11:19, 7 replies)

Stereotypes
Maybe I'm generalising horribly - I usually do - but I've noticed in the UK, we are quite proud of picking up a bargain. Go round to a mates house and comment on his new plasma telly, and inevitably you'll get the response, "yeah, and I only paid £500" or whatever. In the US, do the same thing and you'll get "yeah! I paid six LARGE for this baby! Woo!" and you might even get a high five. But crass imagery aside (although high fives make me feel quite happy), am I wrong?

I love a bargain, but not at the expense of quality. I'll always buy pro kit if theres an option.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 11:16, 4 replies)

Love is stronger than the cost of petrol
When I was 19, I bounced my forehead off a lorry in a spectacular ice-storm pileup. When I was finally released from hospital, I had a plastic and metal neck brace that engulfed most of my torso and head. The final tally was a cervical fracture and a big dent in my cranium.

I also had a boyfriend with a car. The loving gentleman he was, he charged me petrol ‘and waiting’ (like interest) to drive me to and from physical therapy / rehabilitation 8 miles away.
(TheSnark oh, c'mon, like you didn't see me coming, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 11:16, 4 replies)

slightly off topic, but i feel a worthy rant.
the biggest tightwad i can currently think of is, in fact, a crackhead ALLEGEDLY by the name of Martin Betteridge. from the reading area.

rather than work for a living, he gets council accommodation for nothing. he also gets fed,. and looked after by the nanny fuckin state we live in that rewards indolence and punishes hard work.

rather than buy things he wants, he steals them for free!
yesterday, he managed to acquire a rather nice charge stove bike, a much loved one at that, by the simple expedient of cutting a lock and riding off into the sunset... alas being as i'm now reduced to mere shoes, i was less swift than he, and alas, being bereft of free will and a pair of bollocks, the multitude of shoppers who watched me hammer after him screaming 'stop that guy!' failed in their civic duty to try and assist in the apprehending of an offender. so now, this waste of organs has grabbed himself a bargain!
the police, of course, despite having a name, and no doubt an address, have promptly done.. absolutely nothing.

so yeah

off topic, but a tightwad nonetheless.

it galls me all the more to know my taxes are allowing this idiot to be mollycoddled by the government, while i continue to put in 12 hour shifts supporting vital emergency services, and have to pay lots of my money for the privilege of keeping the remainder.

outfuckingstanding.
(UppityDamnPrimate LET'S OPEN THIS F*CKING PIT UP, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 11:07, 4 replies)

Built Ford Tough
All throughout my childhood, my dad’s sole transportation was a baby-diarrhea-brown mid-70s Ford pickup truck.

One day, while driving down the road in, say, 1993, the rusted bottom fell out of the cab and tumbled into a corn field behind us. He kept driving.

He’d warn all passengers, “Keep your feet up and don’t drop anything!” Rocks would bounce through the hole and dangerously ricochet around the cab, haphazardly glancing off passengers and drivers alike in a sort-of road warrior pinball game. I was later informed that on particularly long journeys, he used the damage to his advantage by pissing out of the gaping fracture while driving.

The truck was finally retired in the late 90s after it decided to self-immolate in a spectacular roadside disaster. I’m sure that if it had not melted to goo, he would have driven it away.

And all this – putting himself and others in harm’s way - for what? So he could save a buck or two. He plans to keep his new car until it sets itself on fire, too. Look out for the headlines in c. 2020.
(TheSnark oh, c'mon, like you didn't see me coming, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 11:03, 3 replies)