by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
“Overheard while walking the dog:
'Oh, look at that, the button's just come off my coat, I'll have to get a new one now'
I turned to watch while the dog had stopped for a sniff. She had the button in her hand! Her friend was sympathizing with her about how badly things are made etc. IT'S A FLAMING BUTTON! They were making enough of a fuss that had I not been dog walking and had my usual handbag on me, I'd have offered to sew it back on there and then!!”
The problem is that that is the attitude of the great majority of people today almost everywhere we look in the so-called developed world.
So, a button, which has not even been lost but is in her hand, has come off her coat and the only thing that both women (not counting the lady who was walking the dog and who posted the original) can think of is that the coat, thus, will need replacing. They could not even think as far as needle and thread and sewing the button back on.
How did the thing go as to “for the lack of a nail a shoe was lost”? Something about the kingdom having been lost in the end. Preventative maintenance, also with clothing, is a good idea to make them last longer, and that also goes for cheap clothes. There is no need to throw a garment away because of a loose or lost button. All that is required is needle and thread (and obviously the knowledge of how to sew on a button) and also a button if the latter is lost.
Is it any wonder that tonnes of clothes are thrown on a daily basis, often clothes that would not need to be thrown if one would walk the repair path, and the great majority of those clothes thrown out end up in landfill. What we also seem to see is that people do not care much in general either. If they leave a coat or whatever behind in a park they rarely ever come back looking for it, be that children's clothes or adult ones.
That same also goes for many other things that they lose. People just no longer – a great majority of them, at least – appear to be valuing their possessions. While many of the older generation – at least those that grew up with not much disposable cash – and I include myself in this – act differently those that are somewhat younger when it comes to valuing possessions. But not just as far as losing something and then going and looking for it rather than, as the younger generations do, simply buying new; they also look to make their things last, even though today that is not that easy as repair often it not possible or several times more expensive than buying new.
But a button on a coat and then considering that a new coat must be purchased is just something that to me, at least, is difficult to fathom. Not only is it a case of waste of a garment, it is a serious waste of resources. And the resources are not just, in the case of a coat, the cloth and labor and such, but it is a very long list, depending whether it is made from man-made fibers or natural fibers. It includes oil and the resources it took to get the stuff out of the ground, if it is a polyester material, for instance, or seed, water, etc. if cotton, and that just for starters.
I don't know, but somewhere along the line many seem to have entirely lost the plot.
© 2017
