TLCAre you going to eat that, or should I throw it out, and then eat it?
Kate Hashimoto, a member of the cast of the new TLC reality show Extreme Cheapskates, served her friends dumpster food on the show’s premiere, an act which is some combination of principled, disgusting, and mean and is therefore hard to assess.
After all, this woman is first and foremost trying to use less, which is good, but she’s doing that by voluntarily eating discarded food, so you kind of feel sorry for her. But then you think, whoa, she fed people she knows trash without telling them. What if they got cholera? Would she just be all, “Oh, that’s so weird you have cholera, I can’t imagine how that happened?” Or would she actually say, “I’m going to level with you, I gave you a chicken that was once covered with coffee grounds, rubber bands, and orange soda, and cat litter, but I washed it, so I don’t think it’s my fault you might die?”
There’s a fine line between environmentally friendly and fanatical. Actually, no there’s not. People who are extremely afraid to consume goods are deeply weird and have serious issues, which began with pooping, and you do not want to mess with people with EPIMAOCD (extrapolated poop issues masquerading as OCD). If you think the poop issues thing is extreme, please read some quotes from the episode, as highlighted by Gawker:
- “lf I have to spend money, I cannot avoid it, I will try to pay as little as possible.”
- “If I use a paper towel in the public restroom, I’m drying off hands I washed clean, so I keep ’em and reuse them.”
- “I don’t believe in paying for furniture.”
- “I don’t believe in paying for toiletries.”
- “I don’t do laundry.”
- “I don’t use toilet paper.”
- “I haven’t bought any clothes in probably eight years. The last time I bought underwear was probably 1998.”
She doesn’t use toilet paper AND she doesn’t replace her underwear? PASS.
The one good thing we can say about this woman is that she’s pretty close to climate-neutral.
