Kind of like those eye-opening Tweets about how if the format for That 70’s Show was produced today, it would follow a group of teens from the early 2000s, so is my perception of thrift stores…or thrift-store products.
When I think of thrift stores, which I honestly haven’t frequented in a little more than twenty years, I think of cool finds from the 70s (or maybe a little before or after) because clothes from the 70s were the clothes most found in thrift shops when I frequented them.
After a recent discussion with my sister-in-law, who still visits thrift stores from time to time, clothes from the 60s, 70s, and 80s are long gone, replaced now by clothes twenty years out of date, which marks them at the early 00s, which ironically means I don’t even need to visit a thrift store to find thrift store treasures when I can just walk into my closet.
Our conversation wasn’t really about thrift stores so much as it was an adjunct to a much larger conversation we were having about the poor quality of clothing or almost anything today. In short, how things don’t seem built to last anymore. My primary case in point being that when I was growing up, my parents had the same coffee maker for nearly twenty years (as well as toaster, blender, food processor, and other counter-top appliances of the like). It seemed like if you bought it, you better like it because it’s going to be with you for the rest of your life. I’m forty-three. I moved out when I was 22 and in the same amount of time as I spent living at home with my parents and on my own as an adult, I’ve gone through numerous coffee makers (I do put them to the test, though, as I always have coffee in hand), a couple blenders, and various toasters. And I won’t even get started on vacuums.
But it’s true, whether it’s planned obsolescence or just companies trying to make a cheap buck, things just aren’t built to last anymore.
And I’m frankly tired of it. I’m tired of a company intentionally producing a product that is going to bust in a few years or intentionally manufacturing a product that has a part that will bust in a few years but that part is molded to another much larger part, so if that part busts you need to replace the much larger part at near the cost of a buying new. For example, the clock display on our microwave recently went out. The timer still works but when the microwave isn’t running, the display is just black. To replace the display, you’d need a new front panel. The new front panel costs approximately $50 less than a new unit.
I see this, you could almost call it “bait and switch,” manufacturing all the time. Poorly built products with “no serviceable parts” or cheaply designed clothing that tears or wears out in less than a year.
You know, kind of like today’s news!
Yes, you can always depend on me to make fun of my own profession!
But seriously, sometimes I feel like we live in a world of cheap goods and I wonder sometimes how the term “they don’t make ‘em like they used to” will apply to my 4yo son when he’s an adult. One day will he have an oven that breaks in a year, scoff, and say, “When I was growing up, my parents’ ovens would last five years. They just don’t make them like they used to.”
Coincidentally, my son just brought me in a toy that he got yesterday for his birthday, and it’s already broken. In less than 24 hours of light use. That’s called disposable.
Of course, we all have that product that we want to break but never will. For me it’s my marriage. Oh, come on! It’s a joke. I told you in previous Happy Trails that the only person I’ll truly tease is me.
And maybe GE.
