Posted By crates on June 12, 2007

         A while ago, I noticed that my tooth paste was almost out and bought a new tube.  It was a new flavor and I was looking forward to using it.  However, I was too much of a cheapsk… thrifty person to toss the old tube away until I get every little bit of toothpaste out.  So, I diligently started at the bottom of the old tube and carefully pushed all the tooth paste to the top.  As expected I had enough toothpaste to keep on using the old tube for a while longer.  That was two weeks ago.  Every time I expect the old tube to run out, but every time I am able to squeeze out just a little bit more–just enough to brush my teeth.  I am beginning to think that I will never be able to start on the new tube.   Has anybody else experienced this, or is it some sort of strange phenomenon that I have never heard of before?

     It reminds me of my computer monitor.  It’s one of the old CRTs, a big clunky thing that takes up lots of room…and looks so uncool.  The first CRT that I had lasted only 9 months before giving up the ghost: this one has lasted over nine years and shows no sign of expiring.  I should be rejoicing, but I really am very anxious to replace it with one of those wide screen LCD monitors that is about the thickness of a paperback book.

      It reminds me of an old refrigerator that my family had.  I grew up with this refrigerator, left home, came and went, and twenty years later the refrigerator was still chugging away in the kitchen, albeit with a new coat of paint that my dad had thrown on.  My mother eventually tired of the chocolate brown thing (yes, it had been painted brown) and told my dad to get rid of it.  We hauled it out behind the house and left it on the side of the major road that ran by the house, and ten minute later somebody had picked it up.  It still worked, but its looks and interior had become sadly outmoded.

     Speaking of things that won’t quit, somebody stole my air conditioner this past winter that sat in the window of my unoccupied Texas house.  My father lives next door and noticed that somebody had burglarized the house by taking out the air conditioner and entering through the window.  Nothing else was noticed missing, except for the air conditioner which had been in the family since 1956, just over fifty years and it worked like a top.

     The more I think of it the more I realize that I have several things that just won’t quit.  Like the cheap Sears lawn mower that I bought back in 1984 and continues to start every time despite the fact that I have never replaced a spark plug or performed any other maintenance.  I have checked the oil but it never needs any, and I have never changed or sharpened the blade despite the numerous rocks that I occasionally mow over.

   Oh and the old Sears tv that I bought in 1986, that is a cube about three feet on a side and weighs 7,000 lbs.  It’s another very uncool piece of equipment that just keeps on going.   The Sony tv that I bought for the other room lasted less than 6 years before suddenly refusing to start.  The Sony tv that I bought to replace the first one (I know!) lasted less than two years.  The old Sears just keeps on playing.

     I shouldn’t even mention my Ford 150 truck that I bought new in 1975 and drove it every day until I finally got another car in 2004 and gradually weaned myself away from my old van, neglecting it until it finally refused to start after sitting for six months.  I still feel guilty about abandoning it like that–my old friend of thirty years.  I feel sad every time that I pass it beside the house, covered in moss and lichen.

       I think of these things and marvel at their durability in this age of planned obsolescence.  So many things seem to last only a short while before stopping, and it’s usually cheaper to throw them away and buy a new one.  In this world of 6 billion plus human beings all wanting a bigger piece of the pie, it seem the height of folly to waste our diminishing resources so.  

      Except for my computer monitor, and that curious tube of toothpaste…

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Ford Trucks, Planned obsolescence, Sear, Sony, Uncategorized