Marg recently prefaced a story by saying, "Some people might describe me as . . . thrifty." Honey, no. No one describes you as thrifty. We call you cheap.
Our first winter together in DC, the girls and I noticed that Marg didn't have a winter jacket. She had some sort of black pleather thing with buttons that she would wear when it snowed, but it was definitely not a coat. So, we forced her to go to the mall with us to check out the pre-Christmas sales. Capitalism was kind to her that day, and we found her a professional-yet-stylish black pea coat from Banana Republic for 75% off.
Several months later, we went to go see a movie at Union Station (Wow, do you remember when there used to be a theater there? We're such old-timers.). Marg casually laid her coat over the back of her seat. To our surprise, we noticed that she still had the tags on it. Busted! Did you really think we were going to let you return that? Eye rolling ensued, coupled with some ineffectual protesting and some determined tag ripping.
I'm not telling this story to make fun of my friend. I'm telling this story because sometimes we treat grace like that coat. (Stick with me here.) We know we need it, and we're grateful to have it, but we're afraid that it's too expensive for us. It's just so much nicer than we deserve, so we walk around like we're borrowing it but we don't really own it.
Sweetheart, go ahead and rip the tags off. You can't return it anymore. Your receipt has been paid in full.
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