And a child shall lead them...

Sophia in my office suggested that I try this new show she has been watching called Extreme Cheapskates.

And I think if I live to be 3,000 years old, I will never forgive her.

I'd like to think as a native New Yorker that I am pretty jaded and it just aint easy to shock me anymore. After all I have had the (mis)fortune of living during the era of Jersey Shore, Miley Cyrus, George Bush, the rise of the freegan and (worse) the hipster, jeggings and whatever the hell it is that is currently masquerading as Donald Trumps hair. 

So imagine my surprise when I spent the next 42 minutes with a look on my face that was like this:

Only somehow worse.

In any case, we try the show. On it we get to see first hand the unique and fascinating individuals who have made saving money into far more than an art form…it has in fact become, for them…a mental illness.

I understand coupons, looking for cheap gas, shopping for bargains and not eating out all in the name of living frugally and within one's means.

This is not that.

On the first show we meet a guy who stops at other people's tables at a local buffet and when he feels they are done eating, he asks for their leftovers. 

He scoops all of it into the same styrofoam container. Chips, salsa, guacamole, chicken, meatballs, sauce, pasta…and I imagine the occasional kleenex or maybe even a loose tooth.

Some of his other savings ideas…feel free to use them yourselves…if you no longer have an urge to consider yourself a normal human being:

1. He buys 2-ply toilet paper and separate the plys to make 2 separate rolls.

2. He goes into stores and asks for ketchup packets, then empties them one at a time into an old ketchup bottle he has used for years.

3. He digs a flower out of a dumpster and gives it to his wife on their 25th wedding anniversary along with (I am not making this up) a box of animal crackers, a bottle of water and a rubber toy demon head thats eyes bulge out when you squeeze it.

Anyway we watch the second show and on that one we meet a couple and their 6 kids, the episode starts well, the couple talks about reducing over $80,000 in credit card debt and then it takes a turn for Weirdtown…population 8.

They won't buy toilet paper, she cuts up cloth rags and leaves a pile in the bathroom. This means at any given time there is a bucket full of rags covered in the random poop of 8 people.

If I crashed a plane into the Amazon Jungle and my only possession was the hair on my head, I could still be more sanitary than this.

Then they invite friends over to dinner: pizza made with expired sauce and expired cheese and a bunch of weeds they pulled from a nearby lot that they turned into a salad.

I can't tell you how thrilled their friends looked.

So then we watched a third episode cause... who doesn't slow down for the accident on the side of the road. 

Half way through the 4th show, Ava stands up an announces: "I hate all of these people"!

And that's when I knew we had seen too much.