Saving it "for good"
I'm a saver. I save the best bite for last, save my favorite part of a project, save my favorite tv shows on the dvr until I can watch them all by myself with no one interrupting me. I am not so good at saving money, and the virginity ship sailed in 1990, but other than those two instances, I like to save things.
On the one hand, it sounds nice, because I have a treasure that is special. In reality, it usually blows.
Like the perfect white button down shirt I bought in college. From The Gap. I didn't really fit into anything at The Gap since they didn't do plus sizes, but I did find the shirt there and it fit and I splurged a whole $34 on it. I think I wore it twice. Once for a class and once on a date with some dork from MSOE who did his damndest to get me out of it the rest of the night. But I was just not going to take off My Good Shirt. Oh, I allowed some unbuttoning to occur, but I was not going to sully the white shirt with anything else and it was most certainly not going to get untucked from my acid washed jeans. Shut up, it was 1993.
It was our only date as he was happy to tell my friend he didn't normally date girls "as big as" me, I'm properly fat now, but then I was a size 16 and gravity was still my friend. From the way he kissed, more spelunking than seduction, and freaked out with the giddyness of seeing a boob in real life I am sure he could have ended that sentence after "I don't normally date." and it would have been accurate. And seriously, did you think I was going to put out for a $7 pasta dinner? Really? And some iced tea? Really really?
The shirt never seemed quite as crisp and perfect again after that date, I think he rubbed the magic out of it.
And then there was Dilys, my most favoritest perfume ever. It just smelled like me. I got it in college when I had next to no money an my mom was trying to decide if she would pay for books or not as she was surprised that I needed to buy them each and every semester. I said "WTF?!" about that, too. So I was working on campus, off campus and babysitting on the side that semester to buy books and I spent my Christmas money on a bottle of this stuff. And I wore it all the time and loved it. It was that perfume where people actually stopped me to ask what it was, not in a creepy way, it was usually other women who wanted to get it.
And then it was discontinued.
So I stopped using it.
And perfume does not keep forever, but I didn't know that. And instead of having half a bottle to savor for years to come I ended up with half a bottle that smelled sour and unbalanced and wasted.
I bought an apple green cashmere cardigan with pretty sparkly buttons. My cat dragged it off the shelf and used it as a pillow and turns out, Marge likes to chew on cashmere. Full of little spitty holes. I wear it with nighties in the spring and fall, though, because, goddammit, it is CASHMERE.
The perfect white cotton summer nightie met the perfect storm of sudden epic menstruation while sleeping and remaining horizontal for hours. EW.
The apple green suede shoes that I lusted after for months and finally scored for something like 80% off. I wore them one time and Marge, who does seem to love the things I love (especially my shoes), fell asleep on them. And then woke up and threw up in them. I had to wash them out with soap and water and they are still OK, but I still know what went on in those shoes, so the wearing of them is slightly tainted.
Long lusted after fantastic yarn finally acquired, and then admired. Knits up looking like clown puke and is heavily pooling in a color I never even thought was there from the pictures of it.....
Best down comforter ever both in quality and the crazy ridiculous price of less than $50? Pissed on by Elvis 3 days after the basement flooded last summer...so no way to immediately wash it and the only way to combat cat piss is immediate washing.
The list goes on and on, I have gotten better but not totally. This morning in the shower I decided to pull out my big ass jar of philosophy hot salt scrub in the Amazing Grace scent. I bought it last winter and used it twice and it cost a somehwat reasonable $25 for a big ass tub of it, but last year things were pretty tight so it was a fluffy indulgence. But once again, the "saving it for good" silliness got me and the scent has gone off and it no longer heats up when it gets wet, which is kind of the fun part of a hot salt scrub.
But it got me thinking, as I carried on with my slightly odd smelling exfoliation that now is the time for "good". Every day is the time to use the good stuff, why should I save it for some better day. Maybe the day is better when I have little things that I Iove to perk it up.
But I admit that I just bid on an ancient and tiny bottle of Dilys from ebay in case it still smells decent....