My grandson reached down and found a hole in his comfy pair of socks. He worked on it and worked on it, trying to make the hole bigger.
“Don’t do that. I can fix it.”
“That’s okay. Mama can buy me more.”
His older brother hadn’t worn a favorite shirt in a long time. “It’s missing a button.”
“Bring it over. I can fix it.”
He looked at me as if I were speaking in tongues.
We chip a tiny corner on our favorite cereal bowl. We accidentally bleach a white spot on a new shirt. We don’t wear a dress or a pair of pants because we don’t have time to mend a rip.
And they go into the recycle or the donation pile. Ignored.
We do the same with food. We order too much lunch, we make too much for a meal, we serve ourselves more than we can eat at one sitting. We keep leftovers only long enough until we can pitch them in the trash without guilt.
What waste: one tiny imperfection; one slight abuse, and we discard, erase, start over.
I darned my grandson’s socks. I appliquéd a red rose over the bleached white spot on my shirt. I fixed the tiny rip. I order only what I will eat at one sitting, I make only enough for one meal, and I recycle leftovers in the refrigerator until they are truly inedible.
Where did I learn my frugality?
I AM imperfection: the sock with the tiny hole on its toe, the chipped bowl, the ripped hem.
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