Let me preface this by saying, two days or so after we started our anti-spending campaign, Joshua let me know that our toilet seat was broken. One of the hinges was in fact snapped off at the seat but, while it was a bit wobbly, it was still being held together for the most part. Since it was so early in the game we were adamantly against spending money for something so stupid. We decided that since it was still getting the job done, we'd just live with it and be careful until it completely fell off.
Apparently one never knows just when their broken toilet seat is going to effectively die. I'm thinking it's because most people don't wait this long to replace them. I was obviously unaware of its progression, and so while peeing and simultaneously trying to reach for Pearl's toothbrush (I like to multitask), I was thrown from my resting place, along with half of the seat.
My immediate reaction as I was still flailing in midair, thankfully not mid-pee, was, ok this has gone far enough. I'll ask Joshua to get a replacement on his way home from work. The problem is that we have been living on a ridiculously small budget. So while we have money in our savings for the current bill we're hacking away at, aside from a true emergency, we're not supposed to be dipping into it. And we haven't! Not even for a bottle of wine. Insert sad emoticon face here. And that means that our budget for incidental expenses is shot until Joshua gets paid again.
But come on crazy, it's a cheap toilet seat. Ten dollars isn't going to break the bank. You're getting a little too obsessive about paying off your debt. I know it's what you're thinking, because I said all of that to myself already. And as I was shopping for a replacement on Amazon, I was reminded how we got here in the first place. I mean, all of that little stuff adds up, and regardless of what it is, I can find a justification for buying just about anything. It's a superpower of mine. I knew that if I caved for this one thing, it would start a domino effect and before I realized it, the savings would be gone. Again.
Quite frankly, I have a throw-away attitude when it comes to 'junk' that I've chalked up to living in a small house with a severe lack of storage. I don't like keeping crap around, so as soon as something isn't doing its job, it's on the curb and a replacement is found. I think "Hoarders" is one of the grossest shows I've ever seen. And until recently, I've prided myself on this ethos because I've considered it a way to validate my belief that we're not materialistic. So in attempting to prove that my money-spending habits don't stem from a temporal vein, I have, instead, been ignorantly demonstrating that I am exceptional at being lazy. Oh, and prideful.
I don't think my attitude is any different than the vast majority of people in our country. Our reaction to practically everything in this culture is to spend, then think. Our first inclination when something breaks isn't necessarily, how can I fix this? More often than not it's how much money will it cost to replace it, and how quickly can I get back to my life? It's not the desire for that instant gratification that makes the consumer-driven lifestyle so ugly, though. It's the ridiculously narcissistic notion that as 'Americans', we're entitled to it.
What are we as a family working for? Freedom from consumerism? Or a toilet seat? I mean, hopefully my eccentricity makes the answer obvious. But I also couldn't just leave the wreckage at the risk of one of my kids falling off the pot, so I found an alternative solution. Duct tape, baby. It really works! I might seem cheap, and my toilet definitely looks cheap, but the goal of being debt-free is more important to me than appearances at the moment. And, added bonus, while we have a less-than-perfect-looking bathroom, I also get a lesson in humility. Take that, materialism!
(For those of you who may be guests in our home, please be advised that this is a temporary fix, and has been safety tested by a professional pooper.)
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| Duct Tape |
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