Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Because I Love A Good Deal

I consider myself a very frugal person.  I mean, I kind of have to be. I stay at home with the kids because I love it and because we can’t afford to pay anybody to do all that I do, but I’m not bringing home an actual income. Brad works super hard but mental health workers in Mississippi aren’t exactly getting rich. But we have all that we need and a lot of the things we want, we just have to be careful. And we are pretty good at being careful. 

So today I ran in one of my favorite stores, Dirt Cheap. They had a rack of clothes for $1.00. Clothes for a dolla? Sign me up. So I found Selah a Minions dress, a Minecraft t-shirt that glows in the dark, and a Halloween shirt that says “I love candy,” for when that time comes. Korban got a Darth Vader t-shirt (and as a bonus he and I wear the same size shirt now, so I can steal it!) Also, I found myself two cute dresses. 

I love wearing dresses in the summer because you don’t have to match top and bottom, you just put one thing on and bam, you have an outfit! But mostly it’s just because it’s too hot in the South to wear pants. One of the dresses was actually long sleeved, so I don’t plan on wearing it right now, but I figured that once fall got here, I would be happy I had it and Selah’s Halloween shirt. Also, it was a size smaller that what I normally wear, but the waist wasn’t fitted at all so I figured for $1, what could go wrong? 

After I left Dirt Cheap, I went to meet Brad. He had taken the kids to therapy this morning and I had to get Selah from him to take to another apt while he took Korban to ABA (behavioral therapy.) When I met them, Brad saw the sack on the front seat and asked what it was. I told him clothes and he was all like “Don’t be getting crazy with the spending!” and I was like “Dude, seriously. Did you forget who you are talking to? That sack of clothes cost $6!” and he was all like “BUT STILL!” 

So anyway, I got Selah and took her on to her apt. I had a few minutes to kill while I was waiting on her to be finished so I ran in the library. Let me preface this by saying I’m honestly not much of a clothes and shoes shopper, but I’m pretty much obsessed with books. So I go in the library and wouldn’t you know, they’re having a book sale and there’s a sign saying “Fill a bag with books for $2!” So of course I’m like “Wow! I need a bag!” I was expecting like a small grocery store bag, and that would’ve still been a good deal. But no, the woman gave me a giant bag from (of all places, if you’ve read this blog) CRACKER BARREL! Brad’s wife is loose in the book sale with a Cracker Barrel sack. Best Monday ever! Here’s my bag of books: 



Isn’t it fabulous? I got 33 books for $2. 



Summer reading here I come! 


So then I pulled out the clothes and looked at them and the books and thought “I got all this crap for $8!” I showed Selah her new clothes, and she loved them. Brad and Korban were still at therapy, so it was just me and Selah at home. I decided I should try on my dresses. 

Now the fall dress looks like this: 

Perfectly innocuous looking dress, right? I pull it on and it fits. The shoulders feel a bit tight but all the buttons fasten with no problem and it feels fine and looks okay. I’m good to go—until I try to take it off. The shoulders are SO tight I don’t have enough wiggle room to take the dress off. So I call Selah to help. She’s not tall enough, so she stands in a chair and tries to help me pull it over my head. No luck, so then I try kneeling in the floor but she still can’t get the dress off of me. Being stuck inside clothes is the worst claustropic feeling so by this time I’m laughing hysterically and also totally certain I’m gonna die in this dress. I’m just hoping at this point that Brad’s next wife is frugal because he has no idea how much normal people pay for stuff and that she has better taste in clothes than I do. 

I had no idea how much longer it would be before the boys got home. Selah suggested cutting the dress of but I said “No! That would ruin it. I still want to wear it.” She said “Why would you want to get back IN it after you manage to get OUT of it?!? Which is a pretty solid point from the eight year old. She then asked if I wanted her to dial 911 but I noped out of that one real quick too. 

I did like the idea of calling for help though, so I called my mom instead of emergency services. She lives around the corner, which comes in handy in situations like this. I asked if she was busy. She said no, so I told her I was going to come over and show her something. I loaded Selah into the car (I can move fine in this dress as long as it doesn’t involve raising my arms above my head) and we head out to my moms. Selah offered her services and asked if I wanted her to use my phone to video while Nana got me out of the dress. Yet again, my answer was a big NO! 

We went in my moms and I said “Hey look, I got a new dress!” It was pretty obvious it was new because I hadn’t even bothered to cut the tags off of it yet. I explained that it cost $1 and “It even has POCKETS!” (Dresses with pockets are the best. Except for when you get stuck in them.) Honestly my mom didn’t even think anything about me showing up at her door with a new dress with pockets and the tags still on it, because I’m really random like that but then Selah was like “Yeah, she’s stuck in it.” And my mom yanked the dress over my head and saved me just as soon as she got done laughing. 

In hindsight, maybe cheap dresses aren’t always a great deal unless they are exactly your size. Even if they do have pockets. But I have to say I’m very glad I didn’t try it on in the store. No one at Dirt Cheap gets paid enough to bust me out of a dress I’m stuck in. Maybe my shoulders will shrink by this fall. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone shopping for summer clothes.