This post is in celebration of penny-pinchers everywhere: the Depression-era survivors, the hand-to-mouthers, the paycheck-to-paycheckers, the bargain-hunters, and yes, even the cheap-asses. (I do not use that term in a derogatory fashion. I have the highest respect for those who have the patience and time to research and negotiate the very best deal on anything from toasters to caskets.)

While sorting through closets after the deaths of our parents, my sister and I devised a fun little side-quest we called “The Funniest Thing We’ve Found in Mom and Dad’s Estate.” We established the “Place of Honor” on a small desk in their bedroom, and each time one of us giggled at something we found, we’d claim the “Place of Honor” for our odd bit of treasure.

Several items had a brief stay on the desk: a broken caster from their bed frame, (it had been replaced, but Dad kept the old one “just in case”), a pair of cracked dentures inside the smallest butter container of a set of “Redneck Matryoshka” (we coined this term for the plastic food containers we found in the kitchen, stacked one inside another like Russian nesting dolls), and a pair of bi-focals missing one lens.

But the piece that was the final and unbeatable “Funniest Thing We’ve Found” was a plastic coat hanger with part of the hook broken off, that had been repaired with the wire part of a dry cleaner pants hanger. We both laughed until we cried. The ingenuity and craftsmanship could only have been Dad’s. I can hear his thought-wheels turning even now, three years after his passing. “Why, there’s nothing wrong with this hanger! It’s still perfectly usable, it just needs a hook.” A true Depression-Survivor-MacGyver, Dad always believed in the usefulness of things, even things that to my Generation “X” vision, had outlived their usability and were best suited to be disposed of in File 13.

So here’s to the MacGyvers and the jury-riggers, the re-users, and re-builders, the up-cyclers and re-furbishers. Thanks, Dad, for showing us that usefulness is in the eye of the beholder!