"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article , Doug Kanter says...

"Banty" wrote in message
...

a. Just plain cheap beyond all reason and at any non-monetary cost

My mother in law! If she needed an ambulance, she wouldn't call one unless
she had a coupon. Her frugality was good at times, but not at others, and
she didn't have the skills to know the difference. So....she did all her
laundry with cold water and powdered detergent, with old iron pipes. They
ended up so clogged that they couldn't be cleared. Overflowed, ruined all
the basement carpet. Called a "handyman" to replace the pipes, because he
was cheaper than a plumber. $2000 later....no need to finish the story. So
much for saving money.

Yep.

And could you ever convince her that the problem was that she was being
stupid-cheap to begin with?

...I'm placing my bet..

Banty


You won. That's exactly what she said. :-)

This woman was the queen of cheap. At one point, her ancient gas oven would
no longer light - it required a match. Because it was so old, she decided it
was silly to put any money into fixing it. The result was that every so
often, we'd go to her house and notice that her hair was singed. She was
sticking her head halfway into the oven to light it because she ran out of
the long wooden fireplace matches (which were a lousy idea to begin with, in
terms of safety). I finally convinced her that the gas company would look at
it for free (yippeee!!!), and behind the scenes, arranged for them to tell
her it was illegal to operate the range any more. In fact, they said I
wasn't too far from correct. They disconnected it and put an official
looking seal over the pipe. :-) It took a week of cold meals for her to
agree to be taken to buy a new stove. Unbelievable.

That's the LEAST outrageous of the stories I could tell you. :-)