New and Old

This past year we contributed to the ending of the recession by purchasing a new set of pots and pans and new bed pillows and pillow covers.

As we were choosing and buying these items we realized that this was the first time we had ever owned any of these items new.

Our pots and pans had been inherited over the years, migrating into our first apartments from relatives' kitchens and bought at flea markets. None of them matched and over the last forty-or-so years it didn't matter. But eventually handles loosened, dents appeared, lids stopped fitting, and the ones that were used constantly just plain wore out.

The bed pillows came from our parents' houses. As time passed, we resewed the hems and replaced worn pillow covers, but it finally became obvious that no amount of fluffing was going to restore these pillows. Even the dogs and cats wouldn't use them.

We are happy with our new stuff and found it on sale, but it then occurred to us that having used our old pots, pans, and pillows for all these decades....well, based on our ages, we will probably never have to buy them again.

This thought led to other items that we will probably never buy again.

As we use our cars for a considerable number of years and the ones we are currently driving are less than ten-years-old, we will probably buy, maybe, one more.

Last Christmas when there was a Timex watch sale and I had about damaged my old one beyond repair, I ended up getting two. So each of us now has an everyday watch and a dress watch. Figuring that our old watches were about thirty years old, we did the math and decided these were likely our last ones.

Houses? We like the one we have lived in for the last few decades, so, unless we have to downsize or the school taxes just plain force us out financially, we are probably in good shape.

We seem to be set for dressy clothing [if we can just not gain or lose too much weight], lawn mowers, furniture, linens, silverware, china, bowls, lawn chairs, ladders, tools, cookbooks, and all the other detritus of everyday life.

Well...except for, maybe, the mattress...which is under discussion. Some of us are comfortable with the perfectly good one we have, while others insist that it is time for a new one. The only good thing about possibly replacing it? It would move over to the list of things we will never have to buy again.