On the road …again!
Afghanistan to Zambia
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek

 

Why Meeza Is Soooo…Cheep

 

First off, for those who don’t know heeza’s background, heeza is not a survivalist or a mountain man.  Heeza is a pragmatist and a realist who wants to share a legacy before heeza kicks the golden lamp.  Kids these days might eventually be thinking about kicking the bucket, but Meeza harkens back a little further, to the good old centuries when heeza was pals with Jar-Jar Binks.  Meeza’s bro Jar-Jar taught Meeza everything heeza knows; starting from the time weeza was on the Hollywood set of Return of the Jedi.  Maybe that is why heeza’s grammar is so bad ... spellin’,too.  

Rest in peace, ol’ buddy… in that movie archive nirvana in the sky.  And Meeza ain’t Spoofin…Oh wait, yes heeza is. Oh, never mind!

Now, getting down to cases…. Meeza wants to share a few tips about how to save money.  Did heeza mention that Meeza is cheep?  Oh, yeah…movin’ on….here are a few things heeza remembered:

Meeza always carried a copy of TIME Magazine (the International Edition) in heeza travel case when heeza was On the road…again! in Pakistan….Pakistan Zindibad! (زاندابہد!).... For those of youse who don’t speak Urdu,  زاندابہد means “Zindibad”. After Meeza was finished reading the main news stories and other pages crafted of thin paper, Meeza saved them for recycling.  Oh, Meeza is so embarrass, those thin pages were later used as….as….TP.  Too many times Meeza was in places that had no TP, including hole-in-the-wall restaurants and cheep hotels.  So Meeza the pragmatist traveled with heeza own supply, disguised as Time Magazine and doubling as reading material. Although heeza recycled the thin pages, the glossy advertising pages were too painful to wipe unto heeza….Oh forget about it….there are a few things that Meeza doesn’t want to mention.

On a more pleasant note, Meeza wants to mention that heeza routinely cuts open seemingly empty tooth paste containers.  After rolling up and squeezing the last of the tooth paste from inside of the tube, Meeza takes scissors and snips the tube near the circular opening.  Meeza then gets one or two extra brushings from the longish bottom portion; and two, three; or even four extra brushings from the top portion.  Told you that Meeza is cheep!  And in the old days, heeza used to cut the metal toothpaste tubes into thin strips …to use as sinkers, in case heeza didn’t have any more when heeza was fishing in a trout stream in the Desolation Valley Wilderness Area in California; or in the Feather River Canyon of the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Third day of an "empty"  toothpaste tube

Meeza is so cheep that he always saves “empty” shampoo bottles.  When heeza wants to shampoo heeza hair, Meeza puts 10-12 drops of water into the “empty” bottle, shakes it up; and now has enough shampoo to last for one or more extra shampooing sessions.  The bigger the shampoo bottle, the more extra shampoos can be eked out.  But Meeza is usually so embarrassed about telling anybody about such things, that he doesn’t tell anybody such things.  Jar-Jar Binks would understand.

Meeza is so cheep that heeza always carries away those big, thick paper napkins from heeza tables at upscale restaurants.  Why?  Even Meeza thinks that the subject matter is sooooo…embarrassing, that heeza doesn’t want to discuss it.  But think about the recycled pages from the International Edition of TIME MAGAZINE.  Let’s just say that the recycled restaurant napkins lasted 2-3 days; serving a secondary purpose.

The cheep Meeza that peeples see in the street has been cutting his own hair since 1966, starting with episodes of two mirrors and scissors; as a backpacker On the road ....again!!! in Thailand.  Later he graduated to a trim comb with replaceable blades.  After he got married, heeza darlin' wife learned to cut heeza hair using the fruit bowl method.  Now that heeza doesn't have much hair left, sheeza only needs to cut it once every three months or so.  But sheeza doesn't know that heeza still does heeza own touch-up with trim comb and mirrors around the ears and down the back of heeza neck.  Heeza ears have been off-limits to barbers since the days when Pakistani barbers took to shaving off heeza eyebrows and reaming out heeza ears with a straight razor.  Do you think that heeza is paranoid about that?  Let meeza reframe that idea:  why do you think that heeza is paranoid about that?

At our house, Meeza is so cheep that weeza grow pumpkins on the hillside in the back yard; harvest dooza pumpkins; take the seeds out; carve a face into heeza face; set the pumpkin on a step in front at Halloween; and put a small candle in it when the sun goes down. Den, meeza big mama takes the stringy stuff from deeza pumpkin and makes pumpkin pies--no joke!  And weeza eats dooza pies.  After dem seeds comes out dry from where eva deeza was, weeza eats 'em.  Den meeza goes outside to blow out the candle.  Can't be wastin' a good candle, right?  Right?

This morning heeza reading glasses had what looked like a scratch on one of the lenses.  So what does heeza do? Why, heeza goes into the medicine cabinet and gets the 1oz. bottle of SUPERKLEAR*Liquid*WAX, the one he bought in Germany 52 years ago. It still works the same way it did then.  That is why Meeza is sooooo cheep!  If it works, heeza keeps it.  If it ain't broke,  heeza don't fix it.

It is time to leave this present chronicle entry; but rest assured that Mezza has at least a dozen other items that heeza intends to put on his list of proposed stories.  Heeza will probaby file them under the Humor category in the Youzza Just Can't Make This Stuff Up chapter.  But with the software and internal editor found in LegacyStories.org….it will be a snap!  So, until then; heeza is signing off.  Heeza has to conduct an Internet search for the proper name and spelling of heeza ol’ buddy Jar-Jar Binks. When it comes to writing stories, how heeza wishes that heeza can figure out if Meeza is using proper voice, syntax, and verb tense. There was no getting that from ol' Jar-Jar. 

 

Sincerely,

Meeza bin Spoofin