AJC > Sandy Springs > Blog > Archives > 2008 > June > 16
Monday, June 16, 2008
I’m not cheap. I’m green
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thanks to the environmental movement I have seen an image upgrade in my own home. I’m not longer cheap. I’m green.
I’m the dad who was always the last one of out the house Sunday morning. That way I could turn off all the lights, TVs, stereos, curling irons, etc. - not to mention jiggle the handle on the toilet so it would stop running and give the faucet that last quarter turn to stop the dripping. My kids always chided me for being cheap but now I’m conserving resources.
You should have heard the gnashing of teeth when I started using the plastic bags the groceries came home in to line the smaller trash cans in the house to keep from buying refuse bags. You would have thought I’d told them we were going to make our own clothes from grass clippings and trap squirrels for our dinner.
And if I wasn’t being cheap I was a source of great jocularity. If were all out for a walk I’d grab a stray soda can from the gutter and take it home to put it in the recycling box. That caused much whispering and snickering behind my back.
When we got fast food I always tucked the extra napkins from the sack of burgers into the side pocket of the car to have on hand if someone needed a tissue. They always give you more napkins that you’ll need and I hated to just throw them away. Back then I was too cheap to buy Kleenex but today I am recycling and getting the full use out of paper products instead of going through them pell-mell and taking down countless trees.
I have gotten so green that when my phone rings and I don’t recognize the number my heart skips a beat. Perhaps it’s Al Gore wanting me to come up for the weekend and help knock out the sequel to “An Inconvenient Truth.” Al hasn’t called but he’s pretty busy. Still, I’m ready any time he is.
There can be too much of a good thing. I have a long sleeve t-shirt that I like to sleep in during the winter. It’s been washed about 500 hundred times and is really showing its age. I claim that keeping in means I’m not buying a new one and encouraging rampant wasteful consumption. My wife thinks I’m cheap - and a slob.
She may be right, but I’m a green slob.
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