This article (”Clipping, Scrimping, Saving“) will be on A1 of the Washington Post tomorrow, according to the website. Heartrending tales of people who have to–gasp–clip coupons, buy sale items, buy bulk items, and otherwise economize on groceries.

The last thing Marti Tracy wants to do on a Saturday is clip coupons. But last month the 34-year-old Bowie resident felt she no longer had a choice.

…

Tracy and her partner also stopped buying the cereals they like in favor of whatever was on sale; stopped picking up convenient single-size packs of juice, water or crackers; and, in order to save gas, stopped going to multiple stores.

…

Other shoppers, like Kathleen Holly, are coping by visiting fewer stores and shopping closer to home…. “If I’m driving, I go to the bank, the grocery store, the cleaners all in one trip. That way, I can save money on gas and keep buying the things I’m buying.”

Am I wrong not to be terribly moved by the plight of these people? Am I wrong to be, so to speak, an unfeeling SOB? Because growing up in my house, we employed these tactics to great success and didn’t view them as some sort of last resort before landing in the poorhouse….

The last thing you want to do on Saturday is clip coupons? The last thing I want to do on Saturday is clean the toilet. Should I feel your pain?

You buy brands that are on sale instead of brands that you like? I still joke about this with my mom: growing up, I was told that my favorite brand of spaghetti sauce was whatever was on sale that week. Coke versus Pepsi? Whichever one was on sale. Hey–come to think of it, I still do that. One or the other is on sale every week, and that’s the one I buy.

And this novel idea about doing all of your errands in one trip…. Are there really people out there who go to the bank and come home, go to the grocery store and come home, go to the dry cleaners and come home…?

There are many, many folks in the Post’s circulation area who are genuinely hurting, genuinely struggling. Evidently the reporter couldn’t find any and had to settle for Marti Tracy, who had “already given up organic meat and decided to buy organic milk only for her two-year-old son, not for the whole family.” This qualifies for A1, sob-story-style coverage?

Oh: “Consumers also are saving by stocking up on sale items, then trying not to waste.” Brilliant! I can only hope that this fine work by the Post is circulated far and wide so that all may benefit from this wisdom. Buy sale items and don’t waste them! How wonderful it will be once that secret gets out.

(Addendum: If anyone from the Post wants to interview me about the toilet-cleaning hardships I’ll face this weekend, I’m here at the house most nights after 8:00, usually clipping coupons.)

House Resolution 49: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that there should be established a National Letter Carriers Appreciation Day.

House Resolution 578: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that there should be established a National Watermelon Month.

House Resolution 892: Expressing support for designation of March 11, 2008, as “National Funeral Director and Mortician Recognition Day.”

“Writing Advantage® helps you set quality writing standards that increase productivity, resolve issues, reduce errors, and increase credibility.”–FranklinCovey.com.

First error they help you reduce to increase your credibility: stopping the improper use of the word “quality.”

“If you buy books from a local independent bookstore, you are keeping the local economy going, and you’re being green because you’re not shipping books to your house.”–Valerie Koehler, owner of Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston.

Be sure to visit the Blue Willow website, where you can order books and have them shipped to your house.

It’s three years to the day since my dad died.

I wish I had something clever and/or erudite to say today; nothing came to me all day.

Not a whole lot came to me today–the taxpayers’ money was not spent well on my salary. That day’s timeline was on constant playback in my head for most of the morning and afternoon.

Lacking anything meaningful, I’ll just say that if he were still around, I’d be on the phone to him to see if he just got as big a kick out of Hillary’s debate statement on the Bosnian sniper fire incident (”…and I said some things that I knew weren’t in keeping with what I knew to be the case…”) as I did.

He’d probably be sick of the debate by now (as I am also) and flip it over to the Indians game.

They’re losing 9-1. Ack.

(As I said: I wish I had something clever and/or erudite to say today.)

I was in the Rayburn House Office Building, which transformed into a Staples when I rounded a corner. Got in the checkout line behind Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly to buy a file folder.

This is, for better or worse, not the first dream I’ve had about Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly.

I don’t know anymore.

“What’s that word for a group of birds?”

“A flock.”

“Yeah–a flock. Thanks.”

“We want trade and plenty of it….”–Sherrod Brown.

Next week, the United States House of Representatives will hold a major week-long debate on the war in Iraq–a no-holds-barred discussion on the benefits and drawbacks of immediate troop withdrawal.

No, wait–that’s not on the schedule.

Next week, the United States House of Representatives will complete work on the long-overdue $286 billion Farm Bill to provide certainty to farmers as they enter the planting season–and to state governments, which face challenges in implementing the food stamp program.

Hmm. That’s not on the agenda either.

Next week, the House will engage in a serious debate on how best to reform our terrorist surveillance laws to ensure that we do not lose any vital intelligence that could prevent attacks on military and civilian targets.

No, I guess not–that’s not on the docket.

Oh–here it is: next week, the House will debate H.R. 2537, the Beach Protection Act.

It will also consider legislation (H.R. 2016) to establish the National Landscape Conservation System within the Bureau of Land Management.

And an all-important resolution recognizing the plumbing industry and “supporting the goals and ideals of ‘National Plumbing Industry Week.’” (That one hasn’t been introduced yet and doesn’t have a bill number; I guess the final details are still being hammered out at the highest levels of leadership.)

From an e-mail I just received: “Attached is a letter that we are also faxing today.”

Icon at the bottom of said e-mail: