I giggled as I ticked off every item on your BED list, but I think we can all be proud to be making the most of resources. You’re right of course; times have changed beyond recognition during our lifetime, so we ought to at least consider changing too 😁
We must be B.E.D. soul mates. Only you forgot wriggling the pump hose to ensure every possible drop of gasoline exited the nozzle and safely made is way into the tank. Another great composition, thanks!
OMG! too funny! Even for me, some 17 years younger than you, has actually cut open the toothpaste tube to scrape it clean! I also try to pry open the the expensive face creams but to no avail. I parallel on all parts except your last one- I'll run the dishwasher at times with open slots. Years ago I would help hoarders unhoard... the overwhelming amount of stuff; newspapers, food even- never thrown out and moldy or B.E.D., clothes, drivers licenses from 1974, toys and everything else under the sun. Some of all this saving is a sickness- where and when It becomes a sickness is anyones guess - perhaps it is a heritable trait and learned, as you say.
My aunt, who grew up during the Depression, proudly showed me a cardboard belt she'd made--in 2010. She also refused to take a taxi, preferring the Metro, which I attribute to both B.E.D. and her having grown up in New York. My maternal grandmother (don't read this while you're eating) would conserve the milk she'd cooked her fish in to use in her tea. Yeah, I know.
Good column, Don. I have always been in waste-not mode. Partly, I’m sure, because my parents also grew up during the Depression, children of poor Irish immigrants. My Mom, 92, still swipes Splenda packets from restaurants. Plus, from a religious angle, I was taught it’s a sin to waste food, and I had to finish everything on my plate. I felt obliged to follow this rule well into middle age and sometimes even now at 66.
Very interesting! I find myself with similar thoughts- balancing time versus conservation efforts. However, I do hold a core value of walking lightly (as lightly as possible?) on this earth because we are an affluent country and thus have developed poor consumption habits. I have a hard time throwing away something that is perfectly useful- seems disrespectful. I am however also in a reflective mode and letting go f things that do not serve. #lifelongtask
Let's see. I rewash plastic bags, save every rubber band, also squish the toothpaste to the end, and I have no idea how old my razors are. My mother used to save the string the butcher used to wrap up the paper our meat was in, in a little jar with a hole poked in the top to pull the string back out (a repurposed jar of course.) Remember that along with being children of the Depression, our parents also lived through the frugality of WWII. My mother still had a little tool to fix runs in stockings, which never worked, but I tried. My friend's mom washed used silver foil in the dishwasher. But I'm proud to say I'm breaking out of needing the dishwasher to be fully crammed before running it! Really a self-interest since fewer dishes in the dishwasher means fewer to unload. :)
Sorry... I am quite computer illiterate so I have no idea how my sentence did not get completed but... manufactured by team rivalries, city rivalries, country team rivalries, all created to pit us against them. Not us working with us to create a better us.
Maybe in a few millennia we will be able to overcome this hardwired them and us primitive ideation and work together with just a little bit of waisted toothpaste.
Welllll...this started me thinking about some of the above things I do and I went a little deeper extending it to more universal “habits” that are practiced by the human race.
We are primitively hard wired to distrust the “other” by skin color,religion,ethnicity,race. We have universal rivalries (now manufactured)
But really, what's wrong with squeezing the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube? :)
Things that aren’t used up end up in landfills. Poverty isn’t the only reason for avoiding overconsumption.
Hey Don!
I giggled as I ticked off every item on your BED list, but I think we can all be proud to be making the most of resources. You’re right of course; times have changed beyond recognition during our lifetime, so we ought to at least consider changing too 😁
We must be B.E.D. soul mates. Only you forgot wriggling the pump hose to ensure every possible drop of gasoline exited the nozzle and safely made is way into the tank. Another great composition, thanks!
OMG! too funny! Even for me, some 17 years younger than you, has actually cut open the toothpaste tube to scrape it clean! I also try to pry open the the expensive face creams but to no avail. I parallel on all parts except your last one- I'll run the dishwasher at times with open slots. Years ago I would help hoarders unhoard... the overwhelming amount of stuff; newspapers, food even- never thrown out and moldy or B.E.D., clothes, drivers licenses from 1974, toys and everything else under the sun. Some of all this saving is a sickness- where and when It becomes a sickness is anyones guess - perhaps it is a heritable trait and learned, as you say.
My aunt, who grew up during the Depression, proudly showed me a cardboard belt she'd made--in 2010. She also refused to take a taxi, preferring the Metro, which I attribute to both B.E.D. and her having grown up in New York. My maternal grandmother (don't read this while you're eating) would conserve the milk she'd cooked her fish in to use in her tea. Yeah, I know.
Good column, Don. I have always been in waste-not mode. Partly, I’m sure, because my parents also grew up during the Depression, children of poor Irish immigrants. My Mom, 92, still swipes Splenda packets from restaurants. Plus, from a religious angle, I was taught it’s a sin to waste food, and I had to finish everything on my plate. I felt obliged to follow this rule well into middle age and sometimes even now at 66.
Very interesting! I find myself with similar thoughts- balancing time versus conservation efforts. However, I do hold a core value of walking lightly (as lightly as possible?) on this earth because we are an affluent country and thus have developed poor consumption habits. I have a hard time throwing away something that is perfectly useful- seems disrespectful. I am however also in a reflective mode and letting go f things that do not serve. #lifelongtask
Let's see. I rewash plastic bags, save every rubber band, also squish the toothpaste to the end, and I have no idea how old my razors are. My mother used to save the string the butcher used to wrap up the paper our meat was in, in a little jar with a hole poked in the top to pull the string back out (a repurposed jar of course.) Remember that along with being children of the Depression, our parents also lived through the frugality of WWII. My mother still had a little tool to fix runs in stockings, which never worked, but I tried. My friend's mom washed used silver foil in the dishwasher. But I'm proud to say I'm breaking out of needing the dishwasher to be fully crammed before running it! Really a self-interest since fewer dishes in the dishwasher means fewer to unload. :)
Sorry... I am quite computer illiterate so I have no idea how my sentence did not get completed but... manufactured by team rivalries, city rivalries, country team rivalries, all created to pit us against them. Not us working with us to create a better us.
Maybe in a few millennia we will be able to overcome this hardwired them and us primitive ideation and work together with just a little bit of waisted toothpaste.
Welllll...this started me thinking about some of the above things I do and I went a little deeper extending it to more universal “habits” that are practiced by the human race.
We are primitively hard wired to distrust the “other” by skin color,religion,ethnicity,race. We have universal rivalries (now manufactured)