Those Penny-pinching Indian Folk

Story by Paige Mathew 

| Published Mar 9, 2010

As I’m sitting here sipping red wine on a cruise ship, some questions come to mind. Why on earth am I drinking red wine and not a Pina Colada like everyone else? How did my family manage to smuggle 6 bottles of wine on the cruise ship when you’re not allowed to bring outside alcohol on board?
An even more pertinent question: why on earth am I on a cruise ship a week before Spring Break? Ever heard of dirt cheap off-season rates?

There’s a common stereotype about Indians- slurpee, not casino (yeah, I said it). There is a rumor that Indians are money-stingy, and I’m here to clear up any confusion about it. I’m here to confirm that it is completely true.
Indians tend to gravitate towards free things, and if the things aren’t actually free, they will find a loophole to make it free or at least inconceivably cheap. A few illustrations of this point:

My family would spend our Sunday afternoons at all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets. Now this doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary, but here’s the catch- we would spend the ENTIRE afternoon there. The logic: if you show up around 2 P.M., eat to your heart’s content and hang around for a few hours, you’ll eventually get hungry again for dinner. And if you abstain from drinking water during this time period, rumor has it you can actually continue to eat more. Two meals for the price of one? How else do you feed a family of six?
And in the case of a restaurant like Fazoli’s where you get free breadsticks, it’s a whole new ballpark. When Breadstick Lady comes around, you want to ask for nineteen, but apparently that’s not socially acceptable. So here’s the game plan: every member of our family would be strategically placed in different regions of the restaurant in order to maximize Breadstick Lady exposure. In the middle of the meal, we would reconvene and pool our rations together. If we felt like we’d gotten enough, we would pull the troops out and retreat. This way, Breadstick Lady never catches on. However, in the off-chance scenario where the breadsticks were not sufficient, we might bring ourselves to actually order something.

There’s a reason for all this. There’s a reason I was forced to lie about my age until I was 15 so I could order off the 10 and under kid’s menu at restaurants (and I wasn’t a small kid). There’s a reason I was forced to get at least three refills of pasta at Spaghetti Works, and then ask for a to-go box. There’s a reason I’ve seen Indians finish ¾ of a milk gallon and then return it to the grocery store, claim it was sour, and ask for a replacement.
There’s a reason that when young Indian girls go get their hair cut, they get bangs cut all the way up to their forehead because their parents want to ensure they get their money’s worth. There’s a reason when you receive Christmas gifts from Indian relatives, they leave the real price tag on and only remove the 50% off sticker. There’s a reason Indians will drive halfway across town just because the furniture store over there is giving away free hot dogs. There’s a reason that when Indians go to buy a car, they come home with not only a car but “free” hats, t-shirts, and key chains that they insisted be a part of the transaction.

At this point, I’m not real sure what the reason is, but I figure it will come to me in due time. I’ll ponder it over at my weekly continental breakfast at Embassy Suites.

Note: This column was not based on true events. But chances are, it was.