Is there beauty in thrift?

I think I may have found a symbol to represent this blog.

It’s an image from a moment of desperation far too insignificant for a screenplay, or even the most tedious memoir. Yet I can’t get it out of my mind. I like to think it’s an example of the beauty that can sometimes be found in thrift.
Let me connect the dots as briefly as I can: We were hosting a yard sale several weeks back, and managed to stay fairly busy despite the fact I hadn’t gotten around to putting up any signs. (I had, however, put an ad in the paper, and our three-tent circus was easily visible from the highway.)

Around midday we had a lull, though, and this made Uncle Rick, who was out of work (and had hauled over three trailer’s worth of “inventory”), understandably anxious. He began to follow me around, fretting about the sign problem, as I located cardboard and a couple cans of spray paint that were too far gone to be of any use.
Finally I found a squirt bottle of the kids’ craft paint and a brush. I was poised over the cardboard, brush in hand, when I realized I didn’t have anything to squirt the paint onto. I dribbled some paint directly onto the cardboard, but it was clear that wasn’t going to work very well. A ruined sign would only extend Uncle Rick’s misery, not to mention my own. Without really thinking about it, I picked up the only thing within reach: a large oak leaf. It held the paint perfectly, as if it were designed for just that purpose. More importantly, it provided an exit to that particular microdrama.

It was, at that moment, the perfect fusion of form and function.

Uncle Rick and I didn’t discuss the aesthetic merits of the leaf, mostly because he was in such a hurry, hustling the signs away before the paint was dry. I tend to think he appreciated the concept, or would have, if he hadn’t been distracted. He’s the sort of guy who’s always coming up with unusual solutions to real-world problems -- a skill that was no doubt enhanced by growing up in a family that didn’t have much money. (He’s currently incorporating this skill into a home-based repair shop; Uncle Rick is not one to stay idle, or unemployed, for long.)

This doesn’t mean that the next time I paint something I’m going to track down an oak leaf as part of the process. (Though I would love to find some use for all the leaves we have around here.) Besides, it wasn’t even an act of frugality so much as desperation.

But I like to think that a frugally trained mind is better able to spot solutions like that one -- to perceive that a coat hanger can be untwisted into a piece of wire, if you happen to need one, or that the plastic mat for the kids’ Twister game could be (and has been, in our house) used as an emergency birthday-party table cloth.

Minds trained to look for solutions in stores have a harder time envisioning paint puddling in a leaf like so much dew.