I'll be the first to admit I try not to be wasteful. Some might call me frugal, maybe even, dare I say it, cheap. So? Cheap as opposed to what, a spendthrift? Who wants to be called "extravagant," "wasteful," "faddish," or be described as having "more money than sense?"

You may have read recently that my wife feels deprived because she has a perfectly good crock pot that just happens to be well on its way to becoming an antique. It's already retro. Well, everybody knows that avocado green is long overdue for a comeback. It's only a matter of time until even the most snobbish people will be dying to own an authentic, 1970s avocado green crockpot -- with its original lid, I might add. They don't make them like that anymore.

My wife recently bought some sheets, noting that we haven't bought any new sheets since shortly after we moved here, more than 16 years ago. I'm skeptical about this. But even so, it only proves we invested in good quality sheets for them to last so long. And then, as fate would have it, we recently stumbled across some even older sheets, long since packed away. I actually bought these sheets when I was in college, and I haven't been in college since the first time avocado green was fashionable. One sheet was solid orange, and the other had brown and yellow and orange checks. Now if those aren't timeless colors, I don't know why not.

People are so quick to get rid of perfectly usable stuff just because it's out of style. Foolish, foolish, foolish. Today's out-of-style junk is tomorrow's priceless collectibles. Just think about your great-grandparents' furniture. If you had it today, you could sell it for a fortune. Ten to one they sold it ridiculously cheap, gave it away, or, worse of all, simply tossed it before buying fifties' chrome, which they replaced with seventies' green and gold, all of which are now collectibles. But none are as valuable as that Victorian "junk."

My aunt bought an old, used oak hall tree for $2 many years ago when nobody wanted old oak hall trees. Today that hall tree is worth close to $1,000.

My wife doesn't believe my orange and yellow and brown sheets will become equally valuable, but she just hasn't lived long enough. Even our avocado green crockpot is on its way to being worth a small fortune. If we gathered up all our old, outdated things which, admittedly, would be most everything we own -- myself included -- and packed them all up, in a couple of decades we would probably be able to sell them for enough money to retire on.

Get rid of it? No! Save it for our old age! Save it for our grandchildren! Save it till it rots!

You know, I think we have some canned food in the back of the cabinet that's been there an awfully long time ...

T&D Correspondent John Ott can be reached by phone at 803-829-3638. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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