Cheap Life Lesson

Excellent Ten Cent Advice

Photo by DAVIDCOHEN on Unsplash

We all have true life stories that have formed who we’ve become. You have yours, I have mine. One trait I’ve adopted to survive is being prepared. Hubby says I make the Boy Scouts of America look like loafers. Maybe my readiness is a tad over the top but he forgets how many times I’ve had the exact Macgyver gadget he needed to take all the credit for saving the day.

For me, preparedness became a lifestyle after one simple event in the early 1960s. I was about 8 years of age. We were camping, before glamping was a thought, on a family trip to Yosemite Park. After traveling for three days in our new Aristocrat trailer, showers were number one on the to-do list. Mom kept a quart-size pickle jar filled with change — quarters, nickels, pennies and DIMES.

And yet —

“No use wasting money. C’mon little Debbie,” said Grandma, prying my fingers off the doorjamb.

She snags two towels and my yellow flip-flops with one hand, latching her other hand onto mine. I dug my heels in best I could as she towed me down a dirt path to a dank building with a plank board sign reading: “SHOWERS 10 CENTS.” Inside, four cement stalls lined the walls, each with a coin slot just like the mechanical pony outside of Woolworth’s Drug store back home. When naked, as ordered, I fix my eyes on Grandma’s…