The Curious Case of the Stolen Watering Can Fill
Here’s a wonderfully odd little tale from Germany: police in the small town of Spaichingen are investigating a 51-year-old woman accused of stealing water — yes, water — from her neighbour’s rain barrel. The grand total of her alleged loot? About €0.15 worth.
Reports say she even hid behind a bin to avoid being spotted. And in a moment of perfect bureaucratic poetry, the police solemnly announced: “Once it is in the barrel, the water no longer belongs to the heavens.”
Why did she do it? A petty grudge? A fleeting act of rebellion? Or perhaps just extreme thriftiness — something the Swabian region is famous for.
The Odd Charm of Extreme Frugality
There’s a difference between being careful with money out of necessity and choosing to go full “Uncle Scrooge” mode just for the thrill of saving a few pennies. The first is often heartbreaking — poverty isn’t funny. But the second kind, the voluntary penny-pinching, has long been treated as a quirky personality trait.
TV has leaned into this. Channel 5 might have missed the boat, but the American show Extreme Cheapskates has filled that niche. Watching it is both horrifying and fascinating: one woman flosses with strands of her own hair, another freezes used chewing gum to reuse it, and a millionaire proudly saves money by urinating in jars. Then there’s the man who does his dishes and even heats soup in his hot tub.
Where It Gets Relatable
And yet, some of these so-called “extreme” habits sound oddly reasonable. Using roadkill for fur? Why not. Reusing bathwater? Sensible. Freezing jeans instead of washing them? Perfectly practical.
Even I’ve found myself sliding into small acts of thrift. I’ll cling to a leftover half potato as though it’s a sacred relic, yet think nothing of spending £4 on a shop-bought cake I could easily bake for pennies. I hoard plastic tubs and bags like they’re family heirlooms, redunk teabags (especially camomile, which barely tastes of anything the first time), and yes, I’ve even hopped into the bath after my husband.
Gross? Maybe. But we all fall somewhere on the spectrum — between reckless extravagance on one end and making lasagne in a dishwasher on the other.
Rethinking Waste and Wealth
Culturally, we’ve absorbed the idea that indulgence is life-affirming. “Use the good bath oil,” as Nora Ephron famously said. Lovely advice — except I know mine will still be unopened years from now, dusty on a shelf, as if saving it were some kind of quiet victory.
But maybe we’ve got it backwards. Is extravagance really the sign of a life well-lived? Throwing foam parties on yachts and launching pop stars into space hardly feels meaningful. On the other hand, learning to treasure what we have — every crumb, every drop — might actually be more life-affirming.
And beyond the comedy of hair-flossing or water-barrel theft, there’s a serious undercurrent: the world is heating up, harvests are struggling, and natural resources are becoming scarcer. Farmers are warning about poor yields and livestock shortages. France lost hundreds of thousands of chickens to heatwaves last year — and that was considered mild compared to what may come.
So yes, sneaking water from your neighbour’s barrel is both petty and wrong. And no, I won’t be flossing with my own hair anytime soon. But maybe those “extreme cheapskates” aren’t as ridiculous as they look. In a future shaped by scarcity, it might be the thrifty ones who get the last laugh.
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