Jesus had a Schwin?

My dad was green long before it was popular, not because he gives a damn about the environment, but because he's incredibly cheap. I understand his reasoning to an extent. If you have a finite amount of money coming in every month, it makes sense to try to save money on utilities and sundries. Yes, I'm thankful that I always knew I had a home and enough to eat, but it was kind of exasperating to be yelled at about the fact that "toilet paper consumption in this household is too goddamn high." He went on to say, "We only have X dollars coming in this house each month and we can spend it all on toilet paper or we can buy food." To which I replied, "Actually, Daddy, if you didn't buy the food we wouldn't need the toilet paper." His response, "Shut up, Kimberly!"

He once calculated the amount of water used with each flush of the toilet and came up with a price per flush. He threatened to take money out of our allowances for each flush after the three per day limit. He refused to turn on the air conditioner each year until June 15 (have I mentioned we lived in Texas????). One winter morning during the 80s, he entered my room to wake me up and noticed that all my fingernails were blue. His comment to my mother was, "Maybe I should turn up the heat; I think the girl is dead." When it was later revealed that the blue was due to nail polish, the thermostat went right back to 62 degrees. When my brother's friends came over during the winter months, we would offer to take their coats from them, but they refused since they needed the warmth.

Although Tubby loves Pringles, he refuses to buy them because "you could buy a ten pound sack of potatoes for that." Our family probably went out to eat once a month while I was growing up, and often that was just drive thru hamburgers at the DQ. Hamburgers only, because "I'm not paying for fries, you can eat chips at home!"

As our dad, he also mortified my brother and me with his behavior in public. His embarrassing behavior and his cheapness collided one afternoon at Red Bird Mall in the music store. My then 15 year old brother had saved up to buy a Billy Idol cassette, and since it was a double cassette, it was twice the normal price of $10. When the clerk rang up my brother's purchase, Tubby yelled across the store, "I wouldn't pay that much to watch Jesus Christ ride a bicycle!"

Beyond humiliating for us, but just another day for Tubby!