Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 20, 1993 TAG: 9307200009
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Madelyn Rosenberg
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I feel lucky. I feel adventurous. I feel broke.
It's hard to save money when your favorite dinner is anything cooked by someone else.
But I'm trying.
Gone, now, are restaurant meals. Back are the frozen Kroger pizzas and the ramen noodles I abandoned when I graduated from college. And back are the get-not-quite-rich-quick schemes that I seem to have a knack for.
If you ever see pants with can-shaped, insulated pockets and a velcro patch for the TV remote, I probably made them.
Matt Winston, one of my few friends at Tech who likes having his name in the paper, found me a lab experiment that paid $50 to stay awake until midnight and drive around for three hours on a simulated street in a simulated car without a simulated radio.
I applied immediately, but, alas, my name wasn't drawn. Too many people out there with the same eating and sleeping habits, I suppose. (Matt got picked, and wrecked into the guardrail seven times on that laboratory road, which he reports simulated perfectly a long and boring desert highway.)
I was bypassed, too, for an experiment that measured my head and took a mold of my ear.
Finally, Matt read me a notice about another experiment - $10 for pulling a lever for two hours. I called immediately. Something about statics, the guy in charge said; and they needed women - women with no history of back trouble.
I had an appointment scheduled for the chiropractor later that afternoon. I couldn't lie.
But something will work out, I'm sure. These ideas aren't as glamorous as anything Ed MacMahon could offer, but the chances of winning are slightly better.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to curb my impulse buying, a genuine problem. Admitting it is the first step.
My friends recognized it the day I ordered the vegetable pens from the Harriet-Carter catalog. One-hundred-percent plastic, I received one carrot, one hot pepper, three peas in a pod and an ear of corn.
I owned up to the problem much later, in the middle of Food Lion, when I made a grab for the pecan sandies. (I needed them, I explained.)
Never mind that we were on our way to the river and they were destined to become soggy and tasteless.
These items call out to me as I leaf through catalogs or walk through department stores.
Umbrella hats. Bubbles. This doohickey that holds corn upright in the microwave.
Perhaps if I don't read the catalogs - Italian sodas. Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch. PECAN SANDIES!
Or if I stop grocery shopping.
And stop watching television.
And screen my phone calls.
Just until my flight leaves. In Europe, I'll splurge.
Madelyn Rosenberg, the Roanoke Times & World-News' higher-education writer, is based at the New River Valley bureau.
by CNB