Cheap Bastards Unaffected by Recession

WASHINGTON, DC — While the shaky economy has forced most Americans to cut back on their day-to-day living expenses, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that cheap bastards carry on as though nothing has changed.

“Recession?” laughed Norton Bartel, a stingy plumber from Newark who’s driven the same car — a 1979 Chevy Vega — for thirty years. “What recession?”

“Cheap bastards are obsessive about living well below their means,” according to a BEA spokesperson.  “As a result, they’re way ahead of the consumer curve.”

Bartel, who has been called a “skinflint” and a “pathological tightwad” by those closest to him, agreed.  He sees the recession as a total vindication of his lifestyle.

“I’ve never picked up a dinner tab in my entire life,” boasted Bartel, who has also never paid for his own cable service or owned a personal computer. “Why should I buy a fucking computer, when I can walk into the library any time I want to check my email – for free?”

His father thinks Bartel’s penny-pinching ways are a bit extreme, regardless of the economy. “Last Christmas, you know what that fucking piece-of-shit gave me?” asked the elder Bartel. “A coupon. A fucking coupon he cut out of the Sunday paper.  And it was expired.”

Bartel said that, overall, the recession has engendered a new appreciation for his cost-cutting measures among friends and relatives. “I used to be a ‘miserly sociopath,’” he explained. “Now I’m a role model.”