Worn Out

Did your mom or grandma darn socks, like mine did?  Nothing was worn out or thrown out until it was beyond repair, or could not be repurposed.

I remember mom using a wooden device that looked like a lemon juicer but without the pointy-end, to darn socks. I imagine it was called something like a “darning-egg?”  Since I’m not that into gadgets or devices, I just stuff my hand up into the sock to identify the tear, and that gets the job done.

“Worn out” is a relative term.  To some folks, for example, a sock might be worn out at the first sign of a hole, usually in the toe, the ball of the foot, or the heel.

The very thought of “darning” a sock is way too old school for a generation where frugality and “darning,” “mending,” or preserving a garment of any sort is not the …de rigueur of the day.  Throw it out when it’s worn out, end of story.

I find myself probably squeezed in between the “throw it out” school and the “sew every rip” school in the college of life.  The line that I cross, is determined by the question, is this a favorite garment?

For example, my husband can be seen around our property wearing a “favorite” red t-shirt which has a distinct hole in the back.  He even gets a suntan at that very spot on his back, every summer.  I say every summer, because he is allowed by his spouse to keep wearing said worn-out t-shirt, year after year.

Get this, I even use my favorite stain remover, Shout, on extraneous stains on that shirt and all of his other “work-shirts,” even though there are paint stains on it from five years ago when he painted the house.  I know, some of you are out there judging me right now.  I don’t care, have at it.  Like I said, there is a line I won’t cross and I won’t have my husband out in our yard working with a salad dressing stain on his work-shirt.

I confess, I have sown underwear.  Eek, did I say that?  They were favorites and I just couldn’t part with them yet.  My dad’s pillow cases, handed down, also get sown, tear after tear.

One rainy afternoon I darned a pair of ridiculously expensive socks that I bought with “rewards points,” from a credit card.  I’m sort of a sucker for good socks.  These were the best winter socks I have ever owned; soft, warm, and comfortable.  In fact, I bought two pairs and wore them nearly continuously around the house and on hikes last winter.

These were quite simply too valuable to me to be thrown out because of a hole, well, to be honest, multiple holes.  But I’m not totally crazy about sewing, darning and revitalizing worn out clothing.  I throw out my husband’s torn socks and many-a-t-shirt has been recycled into the “rag bag.”

But, lately, I’m on a cleaning jag and that means discarding some stuff that hasn’t been used in, well, forever.  My new problem is, the “rag bag,” which has burgeoned into several bags with different categories such as tablecloths, blankets, rags such as those aforementioned old, soft, cotton t-shirts which make the best stainless steel polishing cloths ever, old dish towels, large plastic bags and wrapping from new appliances or tools, plastic tablecloths which work almost like tarps – you get the picture?

So, is anything ever really worn out?  Some folks can repair anything.  Creative minds repurpose all manner of stuff, heretofore destined for the landfill.  And, my husband is a true believer in duct tape as the life-extender of many a pair of work-boots, just sayin’.

And what about the kind of worn out which describes the human being, depleted of energy or enthusiasm?  In one of my favorite movies, The Tailor of Gloucester, the Tailor describes his state as “worn to a frazzle.”  That just about describes the truly worn-out garment as well as the worn-out person after working too hard.

When is hard work too hard?  Make no mistake, mental work can be as exhausting as physical work, and some days….

Between us, my husband and I hail from German, English and French Huguenot ancestry and we do not lack the hard work gene.  But some days, I ask myself, “why does everything have to be so hard?”

Physical hard work might wear a fella out, but sweating and aching muscles, sore joints and the inevitable, cuts, scrapes, and so on, result in a certain kind of satisfaction and reward in a job well-done.  But, the hard work of battling bureaucracy, call centers, “help-lines,” and so on, support the theory that mental hard work can wear a person out to the point of exasperation, or to a “frazzle.”

You’ve heard the expression, “you can’t fix stupid.”  And, some bureaucrats and “telephone support personnel” force you to join their circus, when you really have no inclination to swing on a trapeze today.  Yet, here we are, and they’re wearing me out, beyond repair.

 

 

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