Are you cheap enough...??

cheap P Pronunciation Key (chp)
adj. cheap•er, cheap•est
1. Relatively low in cost; inexpensive or comparatively inexpensive.
2. Charging low prices: a cheap restaurant.
3. Obtainable at a low rate of interest. Used especially of money.
4. Devalued, as in buying power: cheap dollars.
5. Achieved with little effort: a cheap victory; cheap laughs.
6. Of or considered of small value: in wartime, when life was cheap.
7. Of poor quality; inferior: a cheap toy.
8. Worthy of no respect; vulgar or contemptible: a cheap gangster.
9. Stingy; miserly.

Today, when we keep on saying that we are more concerned with the value of the human being and his mannerisms, the relevant definition of the word, “cheap” should be very clear, bordering somewhere between the last and the penultimate one according to dictionary.com However, if you learn by examples and you really need to be in a few real life situations to understand the meaning of the same, read along, and I promise a solution to all the doubts arising now in your mind.

Or, If you are wondering about the meaning and the relevance of the question which is the topic above, and that you have been wondering all along whether that particular friend whom you always thought of being a cheapo, is he really the one? Now is the time to clear all your doubts, to step into the shoes of that person, to read along, and to answer the following questions.

Imagine that you and your friend are sharing a flat!

Do you go around changing soap cases when your friend is not at home just coz that’s better in terms of color or has a few holes at its bottom?

Do you bicker with your housemaid everyday and none of them stays with you for more than a month even if she was working for years in the same place before you moved in? No, you don’t molest them or make sexual advances but ensure that the amount of soap used by her is just right, or that she is washing the clothes with exactly the right number of brush-strokes, or just that you are a little sissy, and like any woman can’t allow her to work on her own.

Are all the restaurants in your area afraid of the demanding customer in you and weary of your face and the habits of dictating the cook the composition of the spices, the quantity of oil, and finally leaving the mess in a haphazard manner before waiting to receive the exact change of two rupees and seventy five paisa?

Do you bicker with your milkman everyday for a little extra milk over and above what you had asked for, while not bothering at the same time if the actual quantity was correctly measured or not?

Do you spy your friend's room when he is not around or pry through his belongings, checking out his computer for any document that might be of any use to you against him, or through his phone book to look for the phone numbers of his girl-friends and then trouble them with cranky flirtatious calls and those million times forwarded and deleted romantic 160 lettered sms-es? the fact that you're doing so forgetting your impending marriage in two months, or that your fiancée is on hold on the other phone, or even that you're doing so without his permission are secondary matters and of no importance.

Do you emphasize too much on the hygiene and cleanliness of the house and the conditions that you’re living in and expect your room, your kitchen and your bathroom to be spic and span, but still allow the used utensils to stink in the kitchen, the garbage to rot in the dust-bin and outside it freshening the entire home, as the wash-basin lies in a dirty mess, because you don’t like/don’t want to clean them? A totally different thing is that you make faces about the state of things out of the bulky gas-mask that you keep on wearing on your visits to the kitchen and to the wash-room, one that you wouldn’t take out drinking your tea (the mask’s too large to allow you sip it in a normal manner), or even when you’re taking your bath.

When you share your iron-board with your friend, while ironing your clothes with his iron, in the common drawing-room that you share, do you lock away your iron-board in the cupboard, as and when you’re done with it?

Walking on the street, when you look at the females, and their accompanying boyfriends, do the first thoughts that come to your mind relate to the clothes which they are wearing and very soon you go out looking for something similar yet something different, similar coz that was stylish and new, but different because he had already worn the same? The size and structure of your body, leave alone your age is a redundant and irrelevant fact to the decision at hand.

Do you pester your room-mate to settle the details of that small trip that you made to the sea-side, at least once everyday, for two weeks after the same was undertaken, when the expenses-statement would read a total expenditure of Rs. 50, and you incurred Rs. 27, thereby having a right to pain the other for the princely balance due to you of two rupees?

Now, here’s the classic and the most important question that will decide for once and for all what you are. Assume that you and your friend are sharing the gas cylinder. Now, one fine morning, you wake up and tell your friend that the gas is over, despite the fact that it is very much in existence, but you know he will not bother to check, but just for an added safety of yours, you decide to disconnect the supply, but when he accidentally checks it you tell him that it is working because you inverted the cylinder?

Result time!! First, for the first eight questions, what did you answer? Does your score-sheet say four or more yeses or maybes? Sorry! (The cheapo wannabes can read this as congratulations). You are really one cheap person and you either need to change yourself or you’re already on the right track. Choose the option according to your inclination, aspirations, dreams, desires and wishes.

I know that the last question is puzzling, but if you managed to get an yes to it as well as the first eight questions, you’re either my ex-flat-mate, or you have a thinking process that maps very perfectly on to his, and that you’re running for the crown of being the one cheapo, the one and the only one! But, I’d request you to also kindly explain me the logic of the action taken and enlighten, while allowing my puzzled mind a bit of much-needed rest.

Oh, by the way, the cylinder incident having happened on 29th April, 2006, it was still working when I left the flat on 28th May, 2006. Phew! Are you cheap enough?