Am I a Dinosaur?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve rebelled against being a person who has to have the latest thing—the latest anything. Fortunately, my husband is of the same mindset. I’m not sure if that’s because of our modest upbringing, our similar value systems, or hating the idea of being like everyone else, but there you are.

I first remember experiencing this attitude when it came to cars. Our first splurge was buying a used van for a trip across country (it was used, after all) that was outfitted with an icebox, table and a bed (of sorts). It also had a beautiful mural on the outside, and in Massachusetts, you might as well display a sign that says “steal me.”

They did.

Miraculously, the police recovered it with the inside trashed a bit, and we immediately decided to sell it. We told the young fellow who bought it about the theft, but he bought it anyway.

Oh well.

After that time, as long as we lived in MA, we bought cars that no one would want to steal: a Pontiac with a horrible paint job; then we bought what my husband calls a “baby poop” colored Datsun—remember those? When we left MA, we felt safer about buying a nicer car. We bought a stick shift Toyota Corolla that was just so cute, and I loved driving it, especially after driving Jerry’s ’63 Corvette with a racing clutch; you could see my leg shake as I pushed in the clutch. We even bought a Toyota Supra in Colorado later—vroom, vroom! But eventually sold it as the rear end was going out. (That’s what my husband told me, but I couldn’t verify the truth of that.)

But let me get back on topic.

We seem to always buy things when they are no longer considered the latest, and only buy them if we truly believe we need them. We bought a home in MA, and it was very odd—it had pink carpets and no mirrors at all. (Maybe a vampire previously owned it.) We didn’t use most of the rooms, and were resolved not to do any remodeling until we figured out whether we would be staying or moving. Good thing; we moved to CO.

We bought our first microwave when friends shamed us into buying one. It took up the whole counter. Eventually we tried to sell it at our garage sale when we were moving, but I don’t think anyone wanted it.

Our TVs are getting old. One came from our time in CA, which we bought more than 20 years ago, and the darn thing keeps on working. The other one we bought here in FL, and we were told that plasma TVs give out... Tell that to our TV. It’s more than 20 years old. I see no point in buying a new TV—period—but my husband keeps swooning over the gorgeous TVs at BJs and Best Buy.

I refuse to buy a new TV as long as they are working. (He secretly agrees.)

And then there are the streaming sites. Prime comes with our system. We tried Disney, and that was a waste of time. Everyone seems to like Netflix, but do we really want to watch more TV?

I don't think so.

Do we ever buy anything new? We do. We had curtains made for the house and we have lots of windows. It was time to replace the ones that my husband had made—all of them—after I had shopped for the material. And let me tell you, he did a darned good job! (He is an engineer, after all.)

And he’s finally going to replace his 370, 2009 Z that he bought used. Stuff is going wrong—expensive stuff, so we’re going to get another Hyundai, an Elantra, and trade in his car. It was also time, because we were having to roll out of the car anyway.

And don’t expect us to buy anything else new for (at least) ten years.