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I am wondering what will be next in this ever increasing price rising and what will we be cutting back on next? We have lived out here for 24 years and just in the last 3 years we finally got home delivery of the Austin Statesman. At first they just came to the top of our driveway and left it there and then came on down our drive and for the nicest long time it was at our gate every time we opened our baby blue eyes. We were ecstatic, home delivery and we responded to this courtesy at Christmas by making a nice gift of some green backs to our paper person.

Then horror of horrors, the other day Pat got several phone messages from the Statesman wanting to discuss an urgent matter with him. When he finally got back in touch, the ‘urgent matter’ or what we now consider the ‘bad news’ was to let us know that the paper person could no longer make the 8 mile round trip out to our ranch to deliver the paper but the ‘good news’ was that the next day they would deliver our last paper and a paper box or ‘tube’ they call them for us to install on a pole that we have to dig out on Highway 290W. Well, that didn’t sound like a bit of fun at all and in haste Pat cancelled the whole dern thing!

We are trying to co-ordinate our trips to town since the price of gas has gotten to be nearly $4 a gallon. The rub here is that we can’t agree on what time to go, how long to stay in town and where all we want to go. We have each tried harder to go only once if still taking two vehicles to town each day and we have succeeded to some degree. But today was the first day Pat didn’t have newspaper delivery and he was grumpy about that to start off with and it got worse.

I didn’t go into town at all but he did because we get our mail at the post office and he always does that. He went, he got the mail and he came home and THEN he remembered he had not gotten a paper. This was not a good time to talk to him about his memory so I just let him stew a bit. Then after lunch he casually said, I have to go into town for ‘whatever’ and I will pick up a paper then as well. “Don’t forget”, I wanted to say but I know after 53 years not to push my luck.

And speaking of memory, I lost mine years ago. I went to the post office the other day and when I came out I got into the car and suddenly I thought, “I thought I locked this door because I left my purse in it.” As I settled into the driver’s seat and looked around for my purse my heart flew into my mouth because my purse was GONE! How could that happen in front of the post office in Johnson City? Well actually come to find out in the next nano second it did not happen. Remember all this is happening in quick time, but I looked and said, to myself, “I don’t remember having a Sprite in the cup holder.” OMG…Here I sat in someone else’s, white Tahoe. I have not had a white Tahoe SUV in 7 years so how did I forget what my smaller gold colored Toyota 4 Runner looks like? Who the heck knows? Some things one can’t remember and some things one can’t ever forget like an 8 year old white Tahoe.

First thing I do when I make a fool of myself is to check and see who is watching what dumb thing I have done and quickly I scanned the steps and the walk in front of the post office and seeing no one coming, I scrambled as quickly as I could and exited the white Tahoe.

But these days of trying to make the best we can out of the skyrocketing prices of not only gas but everything else has become a challenge. I have always been a coupon clipper and Super S does double coupons so about once a month I get it all together and organized and take off for the store to save money.

But have you noticed that the sneaky people who make the goods we buy have taken the challenge the same as we have, to cut back on what we get for our dollar. Maybe they even try to not raise prices but have you looked at the width of a certain toilet tissue and a small decrease in the sheets per roll lately? They have cut off almost two inches of width! Now we have narrower paper pieces and the thing doesn’t fit the roller that holds the paper on and it goes wild when you pull it.

I’ve mentioned that a pound of coffee isn’t a pound any longer and 5 pounds of sugar doesn’t exist or even a pound of bacon, but the price has increased and the quantity has decreased. I heard someone belaboring the fact that their animals that used to be treated to a Science Diet diet, now has been downgraded to Pedigree. So it’s not only us humans who are tightening our belts but our animals too. Has anyone looked at the price of deer corn this year? Boy does that make skipping hunting and instead buying your sausage at the meat market a better deal, how about that guys?

Some of our baby boomers are just learning their first lesson in a how to make do on less of everything. I imagine it’s a shock to a lot of them and to tell the truth, I don’t like it much myself but I do have a bargain to pass on.

The other day I was treated to a birthday lunch and a movie in Austin by a good friend and we had lunch and a movie (but no popcorn) for $10 each, now that’s a bargain. Of course we had to drive to Austin to get that deal and that wasn’t cheap, but on Tuesdays, the theater at Barton Creek only charges $4 per senior. So if you need to go to Austin, make it on a Tuesday and take in a movie at the same time. Get more fun out of your money.

So what’s next? Who knows?