TV And Dinners And Bisque, Oh My!

(I’m working in a call center that pays above minimum wage, but not by much. I’m an extremely frugal person, which serves me well in this job. My coworkers sometimes have a harder time with it. The following describes several conversations with one such coworker.)

Coworker #1: “Ooh, that smells good! What are you eating?”

Me: “Tomato-basil bisque with cornbread muffins.”

Coworker #1: “Wait, from [Expensive Restaurant]? How the h*** can you afford that?!”

Me: “No, I made it, from some tomatoes I canned up last summer. Only about fifty cents worth of ingredients, and it made about three quarts worth!”

Coworker #1: “D***, girl, nobody has time for crap like that!” *eats her $10 takeout meal*

(Later:)

Coworker #1: “Hey, did you see [TV Show] last night?”

Me: “No, I don’t watch much TV, sorry.”

Coworker #1: “WHAT?! What the h*** do you do with your time?! I’d be bored out of my mind.”

(Another day, she overhears me talking with another coworker about a good-quality grain-grinder I bought.)

Coworker #1: “How the h*** can you even afford that?!”

Me: “I’ve been saving up for it for two years now. I have a ton of wild grains growing in my backyard. If I can—“

Coworker #1: “Just buy your food like everyone else does!”

(Another day, I catch part of a conversation happening near my desk:)

Coworker #1: *in tears* “How can they evict me? It’s not my fault I didn’t have money for the rent! Our fridge broke down. Do you know how much it costs to eat restaurant food three times a day? What am I supposed to tell my little boy?”

Coworker #2: “Wait, didn’t your fridge break down months ago?”

Coworker #1: “Yeah, I couldn’t afford a new one! If I had a fridge, I’d have a place to keep TV dinners, and then we wouldn’t have to eat out every meal.”