Stuff! We live in a glorious world of stuff, things, items, and objects! Services! People providing us with their expertise of some skill or resource we ourselves do not have! Of course, this means that everyone likes a bargain whenever they need those things; keep the ol' wallet as fat as possible.
However, in my learned experience of seeing discounts, I have seldom been rewarded for my frugality with much but disappointment. As they say, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Toilet Paper
TP. Asswipe. Butt napkins. Fudge smearers. Whatever you want to call it, it is a staple of modern living, and nothing is worse when you have that urge to slam out a sewer pickle in an unsavory place, like a gas station, a Greyhound bus, or your Uncle Carl's trailer. "Can's right there." "I can see that. Thanks, Carl." Then, you discover, to your horror, one-ply—you gasp with the dread of a man walking through the gates on his first day in prison. In your utter desperation, you fling off your underwear and wince as your ass touches the foul seat, knowing that even when you feel that blessed relief, you still must hurl fistfuls of coarse, easily destructible paper on your brown eye. One-ply shouldn't even be legal for civilians to buy.
Guns and Ammo
You can argue your politics on them or whatever, but if you're gonna buy the one, you're gonna buy the other. They should be as high quality as you can get, especially for defense purposes. You want something that will just work; otherwise, you may as well just carry a rock in a gym sock in your holster. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, yet lots of people will tell you it must be the most giga-tactical, lead-slinging beast on the planet. Do not listen to them. Some people say a nice, cheap Saturday Night Special, loaded with cheap practice ammo, is all you need. Especially DO NOT listen to them. Middle of the road suits most of us perfectly fine.
Tools/Safety Gear
I get it if you just need a $3 screwdriver because you forgot where your good one was, but do you wanna keep buying cheap power tools with shitty blades, bits, and whatnot, every time you break the last? Or repair them? Buy once, cry once. Otherwise, you're just throwing good money after evil. And safety gear? Do I even need to explain this? "A hundred fifty dollars for a helmet? Fuck that! What a scam! I can get this one here for about tree fiddy. Nice and lightweight, too." When you're putting your head and body on the line, be kind to those things, or you might find them in the ground.
Computer Gear
You can indeed get laptops for around a hundred dollars, which aren't those kids' laptops. You can get a Hoveeltt-Pacman, a Dorl, an Aysus, a Lenervu, Sansang, Acre, and all the best names, with all the best prices. Yes, you can. Of course, you can, then when it breaks in two months, and you call the support line, only to discover that the number does not exist, and the company took your money and started a new company doing the same thing (this is real, and apparently legal in China). Plus, your teen daughter is going to really love her Orple Muckbook, then ten years later, you're estranged and telling your troubles to nobodies in a bar you've been to many times, but can't recall the name of. Come back, Mandy. We all miss you. I'll buy name brand, I swear!
Transportation
Yeah, there are plenty of sites out there that have the entire purpose of sourcing or directly retailing cheap plane tickets. Most of them have names not even related to air travel. Momondo? eDreams? That sounds like a porn site. "Kayak? That's what you're sure you want to go with?" "Trust me, Bill, everyone will know we are about plane stuff." Then there's you, WIZZ. Fucking WIZZ?! Oh my god, WIZZ. All WIZZing aside, the entire process of air travel is designed to frustrate the customer in the first place. Broken check-in kiosks, long lines, ugly people, smelly people, and people from countries who somehow managed to get here but cannot figure out how to get back. "Don't give a fuck; I just work here," staff and heaven help you if something about your purchase or flight happens. Then you're double-ought fucked. All for the pleasure of your "win"—getting a 75-dollar ticket to Baltimore in a cramped, smelly seat. Pay the extra bucks to make the end goal at least not like you bought a ticket into a sky-bound tube of pure hell.
Lodging
Once you arrive at your destination, you take an Uber where the guy is making direct eye contact in the mirror while he drives. Then you get out, wearily set your bags down, and encounter the guest clerk. He looks at you like you just took a shit on his mother's cheat and is disgusted and angry about all that corn. "Hello," he says with barely the forced politeness of a Verizon Wireless support phone operator. "Are you staying with us?" "Why the fuck else would I be here?" you think to yourself.
"Why, yes, I am," you reply with sleep-famished courage. He can't find your reservation. "Look, I brought a printout of my online receipt," you think, feeling your preparedness might have helped you and maybe earn a room upgrade. A half-hour passes. Fifty people come in and get their room keys in about 3 minutes. Do they have any hotel coffee around here? Aha! When you hear, "Sir, your room is ready." Finally. He gives you your keycard, and you lumber your crap to the elevator. Goin' up, bitches! Your room is a mere 20 feet from the elevator door. You slide the key, ready to do nothing but flop, only to notice the bed hasn't been turned down, and it doesn't appear to have even been cleaned. You call the front desk, and the goofy-looking manager answers because nobody else has quite the Urkel-like voice except, perhaps, Urkel. You explain. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I didn't realize your floor wasn't on the cleaning schedule. If you wouldn't mind waiting about 45 minutes, it will be taken care of." Sure. You wait, and you wait, and they go in and take a brief 7 minutes to "clean" your room, which they did. Except for the bathroom. Are...are those tiger stripes?"
Kitchen Knives
To begin, I know plenty of people who have never known anything but the 35-dollar blister pack of knives, which you buy at the grocery store and just toss when they get dull or break.
However, once you get a good 1-200+ (or higher; if you were a chef or cook, you'd already have one, though), it's like having a proper cheeseburger stuffed with cheese, made on homemade buns when all you've ever had before is those gas station burgers wrapped in foil for "freshness," when you know it has been there since CDs were popular, and whatever it is, wasn't ever a cow. I'm not saying that everyone needs a pricey knife, but if you ever have one, know they last forever and merely need a little maintenance now and then.
There's my list. I was going to include soy sauce, too. But DO NOT EVER BUY THE GOOD SOY SAUCE. I paid fifty goddamn dollars for some shit aged in sake barrels for ten years because people said it was the best. It is. Now, it has ruined all other soy sauces for me. I used to be perfectly content with the little packets, but now I'm a snob, and I didn't want to be. Anyhow, if you'll excuse me, I've had a rough flight to Baltimore, people are trying to break into my unkept hotel room, and all I have is a shitty hard hat, a roll of one-ply, a Raven Arms .25, a $3 serrated kitchen knife and my Aysus laptop with which to defend myself.
Caveat emptor,
-Wombstretcha
Wombstretcha the Magnificent is a shrewd buyer, kitchen knife manhandler, writer, and retired rapper from Portland, OR. He can found at his website, Wombstretcha.com, on Twitter/X/whatever as @wombstretcha503, and on MeWe and (begrudgingly) Facebook as "Wombstretcha the Magnificent."
