Dime-Wise, Dollar-Foolish

I never thought this would happen in my lifetime – mom hasn’t shopped for herself in more than two months! (OK, this is not counting the half-dozen macadamia nut cookies she bought at the mall last weekend and consumed in the short walk between Sears and Macy’s.)

The spoilt pampered hedonist, who had formerly buried her spiritual side under layers of blubber, has suddenly had a light bulb moment where she feels that she has enough to be grateful for. The woman has suddenly started counting her blessings.

She’s making enough money (wait, is it even possible to feel that way? Should I be worrying about her already delicate mental state?); she has enough clothes and shoes in her closet (at least for this season); too many unread books lining her shelves; excessive cell phone, digital camera, Game Boy chargers cluttering the kitchen counter; innumerable remote controls for technology she rarely uses; and an overstock of Ambika applams in her pantry dating back to 1998.

Just as she uses less than 15 percent of her brain on most days, mom barely uses even half of the possessions she has amassed over the years. Some of her saris and jewelry haven’t seen daylight since her wedding ceremony; Cottage Emporium knickknacks adorn her suitcases and drawers instead of the walls; greeting cards from a decade ago are stored in shoe boxes; and hair products she was conned into buying on annual visits to the salon mock her from the bathroom shelf.

A few weeks ago, when mom attended another FranklinCovey class, she chanced upon a phrase by a man named Lin Yutang in one of the manuals. “The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials,” she read, momentarily distracted from her chocolate doughnut. Struck by its profundity, mom highlighted the phrase. She pondered for a moment, licking her sugary lips, and concluded that the saying would make an excellent fortune cookie filler.

“I learned something today,” she mentioned to dad at the dinner table that night. “I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to simplify our lives.”

Dad played it safe and nodded absently.

“Let’s start by canceling all your magazine subscriptions,” declared mom, pointing to a leaning tower of unopened National Geographic, Motor Trend, Plane & Pilot, Consumer Reports and Wine Spectator magazines piled on the kitchen countertop. “And let’s throw away all the CDs we have as well. We’ve downloaded all the songs we really like, so why do we need this clutter? Come to think of it, we don’t really use that La-Z-Boy upstairs, either. Maybe we should leave it out on garbage day.”

“Here’s an idea,” countered dad. “Why don’t you start by rearranging your stuff? Why do you need all this junk?” he asked, pointing to mom’s extensive Pepperidge Farm cookie collection in the pantry.

Even though the conversation did not produce the desired effect, mom was determined to not allow a slight setback to deter her. She threw a garage sale the following week and hung up dupattas and wall hangings for sale in our driveway.

“You did what?!!” exclaimed grandma, when mom proudly told her that she had managed to rid her cupboard of the assorted blouse pieces she had collected over the years.

“If you didn’t want them, you should have set them aside,” declared grandma. “I could have given them away with vettalai-paaku.”

“But you forced me to bring them here in the first place,” said mom. “I told you I’d never use them.”

“Well, call some of your girl friends home on a Friday and give the blouse pieces away with fruit and betel leaves. Make haldi-kumkum packets, buy some coconuts and put everything in a nice gift bag,” said grandma, clearly missing the logic of spending more money than the blouse pieces were worth.

Mom smartly withheld the fact that the abstract Ganesha wall hanging she never liked but hung out of guilt, was also sold. As were the cookbooks without photos, curtains and dhurries from her first India trip, tie-dye dupattas from her college days and footpath jewelry that she hadn’t used in a decade.

“I feel so much better,” thought mom, bagging the unsold items and storing them away for next year’s garage sale. “It’s almost a cathartic experience,” she concluded to dad sagely.

The following Saturday, before mom even awoke, dad stepped out and bought himself a shiny, new convertible.