I am frugal, not cheap. There is a difference!

I am not cheap.  I am frugal.  There is a difference.  Yes, I reuse mousetraps.  Himself claims mousetraps are cheap so just throw the used trap and squished mouse into the trash, buy more traps and reset.  I say why not spring open the squished mouse, toss it in the outside trash (yes, this is important), re-bait and reuse.  Think of all the wood used to make those mousetraps that gets thrown in the trash.  And the little metal killing thing.  Now, if the last mouse victim left substantial remnants, and the trap cannot be cleaned up with a bit of Simple Green, then okay, toss it.  But efforts to reuse must first be made.

In the past, I have, perhaps, overstepped the boundaries of frugality and the nobility of reusing a product.   I say perhaps because actually, as I think back on one particular occasion, I’m not totally convinced I did cross over to “are you out of your ** mind?” status, though Himself still holds firm on his diagnosis.

No, this is not really my house, but the scenario is familiar.  And, really, I would have vacuumed the cat(?) hair off that black thing and mopped the floor.

After my dad died, I inherited his two cats.  Himself put in a cat door so our two kitties and the new two could come and go through the back porch door.  This door opened into a back room off the kitchen.  Add a bowl with dry cat food in it, and in no time we began to have raccoons, opossums and, yes, a skunk come nosing through the cat door.  Not good.  So, we put in a magnetic cat door flap system which required each cat to wear a collar with a magnetic thing that “unlocked” the flap so only they could come and go.  These systems are not cheap.  There is a real cost issue if a cat loses the collar or the magnetic thing.  And the cat who loses the collar can’t get back in or out.  Which leads to other problems.

One of my dad’s cats, Max, was already 14-plus years old to start with and while our family was away for Spring vacation, Max disappeared.  The cat care person never saw him while we were away.  For three weeks, we asked around for sightings of him with the neighbors, and called for him day and night.  Finally, we figured he might have gone off to die.  During these few weeks we had a bit of a heat wave, and a smell started to waft up from the floor in the back room.

With flashlight in hand, Himself, who is a big guy, went to search deep under the house worming his way, on his belly, inch by inch, in a crawlspace less than 2 feet high.  

“I found him”, came Himself’s muffled voice from way under the house.  “Yep, it’s Max and looks like he’s been under here since we left.”  Himself backed out of the crawlspace on his belly and asked for a garbage bag, a shovel, and something to put over his nose.  Himself verified Max was decomposing pretty fast, really stunk, and he would have to use a shovel to scrape him out of the ground and into the plastic bag.  Armed with his gear, Himself went in again, gagging a bit, and grumbling as he scooped up Max and moved him to the bag less than a foot from his face.

After a short bit, Himself’s feet showed up and wriggled out of the crawlspace opening, followed by the rest of him, the shovel and the black plastic bag.  

“Where do you want to bury him?” Himself asked.  “He needs to be buried quickly.  Parts are kind of liquifying already.”

“How about burying him over there? Be sure and remove his collar so we can reuse it, okay?”  That’s when I got the “Look”. 

“No, that’s not going to work.  The collar is kind of already sunk into his skin.” 

“Oh, how about just the magnetic thing then?”  

I was serious.  I didn’t see anything wrong in saying it then, and right now, I still think it was a perfectly reasonable and frugal thing to consider.  I probably could have just sprayed some Simple Green on it and we would have a backup in case one of the other cats lost theirs.

Max was buried with his collar.