Today’s Croan is “It still looks good to me – you don’t need a new one.”

Went pillow shopping today even though the old pillows are not worn out, they’re just uncomfortable. But they are still good.  This is actually a knotty little problem given I just threw out my childhood pillow last year. I’m over 40. Martha Stewart would be having kittens. She recommends new pillows every three years. As if.

Waste not, want not drives me to keep the old (not quite garbage yet) pillows and use them on the attic guest bed for kid sleepovers. The attic is the repository for many “it’s-not-broken-enough-to-get-rid-of it-yet” items because they are still good. For something. To someone. Eventually.

I am far from turning into a hoarder but my parents relentless “Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without” crap is not terribly in sync with my now middle-class suburban existence. So I recycle & re-purpose. 21st century consciousness rather than depression-era reflex, but I still know which charities take donations of wire hangers & want the plastic bags from Target.

Many of my impulses in this area are furtive, because, like I said, the suburban landscape is not one of need. So I have a rain barrel and grow my own tomatoes, and then buy my suits at Nordstrom. Thats a long way from the sale rack at Zayre’s.

And the pillows feel great.