Everything I own was either given to me or came from the thrift store – well except for the nectafirm which is supposed to elasticize my aging neck – what can I say we all have our Achilles heels. At any rate I was setting up props for my – can’t quite afford a roadie yet one woman show – and the tech supervisor said – looks like someone’s been to a garage sale – my response was ‘Na! they’re too expensive.’ Then I said, ‘I learned years ago that if you spend $1,000.00 dollars on furniture you’ll yell at your kids’ and felt quite pompous at how smart I was. Until I thought about it and realized it was true – and not true – true that I learned cheap furniture takes stress out of parenting – untrue that I would know – because – I never actually bought furniture for $1,000.00 – I don’t really have a comparison. (It’s possible that I yelled at my kids whenever I thought about buying furniture for $1,000.00 but I have no memory of this.) I was probably just justifying the fact that I don’t care about that stuff and don’t want to spend money on it. I realize it could have been different – I could have learned to be easy about spending 1000 on furniture and still not yell at the kids – but – then I’d have less money for travel and their favorite buffet – so – since I have to choose something to believe – now that I’ve examined it – I guess I’ll repurchase the ‘I learned years ago that if you spend $1,000.00 on furniture you’ll yell at your kids’ mantra that keeps me out of IKEA – and sprinkle its message about the house- for just a little longer.