I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Growing up poor is an adventure in restraint.  Especially, when you are a child who’s wiser than his years, and knows that his parents struggle financially.  I learned at a very early age, to hide my disappointment when I didn’t get exactly what I wanted.  If I got it at all.  

Brands that were off.  Colors that were wrong.  The K-Mart version rather than the name brand version. 

To be fair, sometimes I’d be surprised and get exactly what I wanted.  The year we got our pong game, followed a few years later by an Atari console.  These were great years.  

Still, I learned to feign excitement.  I learned to smile through the disappointment.  

It’s a great gift to have learned as a child that is very useful as an adult.  Smiling through the disappointment when the bonus is less than you thought it would be.  When the role you auditioned for was not the one you got.  When your boyfriend buys tickets to the musical you want to see, but buys partial view tickets to save money.  

Or.  

In the mid 90’s I moved to NYC.  My mother asked what I wanted for Christmas.  And by then I’d learned to set the bar low, and to be very specific.  I really didn’t need anything so I asked for white bath towels.  

Easy right?  

The reason I mention that I was living in NYC, was that I was living on my own and only needed a couple of towels.  

The catch was, that anyone who was going to buy me a present that year for Christmas asked my mom what they should get me.  And she replied every time, white bath towels.  

And Christmas comes, and I go home, and we gather on Christmas morning to open gifts.  My cousins pass out the gifts.  I had more packages than I thought I would.  

We are a go around and open one gift at a time family, so the opening commenced.  I open my first gift and it’s a white bath towel.  The opening continues and it gets back to me.  

It’s a white bath towel. 

And this goes on for several rounds.  When it’s all said and done, I think I have seven or eight towels.  Nothing else.  Just towels.  

And I think to myself,  I got what I asked for, but what does a single man going to do with 8 white bath towels.  Plus, I live in NYC, I have one closet, that’s the size of a shoe box.  

I’m very grateful, and not disappointed at all.  I didn’t really need anything and I got what I asked for.  

But wait.  It’s gets better.  

Fast forward 365 days. 

Christmas is here again.  I’ve flown home and am about to start opening gifts again.  They get to me, and what would you know, the first package contains white bath towels.  Two more circles around and now I’m up to 6 more white bath towels.  

When I got back to NYC I had enough towels to open a hotel.  

But wait.  

Yes, the following year, I got two more white bath towels.  

After we opened gifts that year, I said to my mom, “Please for the love of god, can I NOT get bath towels again next year.”  

And I didn’t.  

Soon after, we stopped exchanging gifts, but I’m pretty sure I still had these same towels when I moved in with Adam.