Why I can’t throw away ball-point pens that don’t write anymore

My mom grew up in rural Kentucky during the Great Depression, when the USA was rocked by financial chaos. The stock market crashed in 1929, making millions of wealthy and middle-class people penniless overnight. 

     In Hart County, Kentucky, the crash didn’t have immediate effect, as most farmers didn’t have money in the stock market—any money they had was under their mattress, in a sock. But the waves of unemployment and failed banks rippled everywhere, so even my mom felt the impact. Her natural-born impulse to “make do” became the cornerstone of her life.

My mom's parents: John and Annie Moss

From thrifty Scots-Irish stock, my mom’s family had always made do with things until they wore out completely. Rules in my childhood home included:

1.   You can’t open a new thing till the old thing is used up.

2.   You can’t buy anything new until all bills are paid.

3.   You can’t replace anything until it’s absolutely broken, non-functional, and maybe even dangerous to use.

4.    You can only buy what’s a bargain or on sale.

5.    You can’t throw anything away that might be useful in the future (with a bit of tinkering).

    These rules are engraved in my mind and heart. So this morning when my pen (one of dozens) stopped writing, I looked at it for a long time. The pen might it be okay in an emergency, to write the phone number of Urgent Care. It might be used to open the tape on a package. It might suddenly repair itself and write nicely again.

 

So the pen is sitting there on my table, waiting for the court’s decision, and I have spent way too much thinking about it.

    But rules are rules, after all. My rules also prevent me from buying a shiny new toaster when the one I bought in Publix for $10.00 in 2013 still works fine, even if it’s looking shabby now. It’s painful to pay full price for the thing I want, so I buy an approximation on sale—but my heart still longs for the one I really wanted.

    I’ve been trying to shift my rules a bit, make them less tyrannical, as I get older. I reason that the sheets I buy now will probably last the rest of my life, so it’s not extravagant to buy the expensive ones that make me smile.

    But then I hear my mom’s voice—farm people from Kentucky are thrifty, not wasteful. Buy the sheets on sale—they’re good enough. Keep the shabby toaster till it’s dangerous to use. And never, never throw away a pen that might write again someday.