Buying Used: It All Comes Out In The Wash

People can be so delightfully illogical.

The other day, I was telling a friend of mine about a nice, high-thread-count sheet set I’d bought at an estate sale. Her reaction?

“Ugh! You’re going to sleep on sheets someone else has used?”

I grinned and pointed out that whenever she stays at a hotel, she sleeps on sheets that thousands of people have used. And every time she eats at a restaurant, she’s putting the same silverware in her mouth that countless people have had in theirs, eating off the same plates and drinking from the same glasses.

You should have seen the expression on her face as these facts sunk in. I may end up getting a bill for therapy.

The point is, something doesn’t have to be brand new to be usable, it just has to be clean.

I have both a dishwasher and a washing machine and they work just fine, thank you. So I have no hesitation in buying things that someone else has worn or used. (Okay, I do draw the line at underwear!) I avoid items that are chipped, worn, torn or stained, and whatever I buy I wash before using. Shoes in “like new” condition I swab out with alcohol, and let sit in the sun for a day. (By the way, you do realize that shoes bought"new" in a store may have been tried on by dozens of people, right?)

I fry my eggs in a pan someone else once cooked with, I drain my lettuce in a strainer that cost me 50¢, both thoroughly washed when I got them home. And the queen-size sheet set that would have cost me $50 in a store cost me $5 instead, and looks like I just brought it home from Macy’s.

Ironically, there’s another “used” item on my bed right now, one that I’ve only hand-washed--very, very carefully-- once in ten years. It’s a yellow and white quilt, and it is actually just a little ragged around the edges. Got it that way. Not surprising, since it’s probably been more than a hundred years since my great-grandmother made it. Old, a little ragged and definitely used....and I saw one just like it in an antique store the other day with a $250 price tag on it.

I wonder what my friend would say about that!