I’ve worn out a few books, and a lot of shoes, and used up all the ink in quite a few pens. In recent years, I’ve collected nine highlighters that are all out of ink from stuff I’ve highlighted.
I tend to wear out jeans in the knees, and then I keep them and wear them for working around the house. For some reason, the crotch is the next thing to wear out. Jeans never used to wear out like that. I’m convinced they don’t make them as well as they used to.
I wear out shirts that I like—usually the collar gets looking ragged first, from rubbing up against the wiry stubble on my face as the day goes on. I’ve worn out the elbows on a lot of sweatshirts by leaning on my desk when I type. I’ve had a few really comfortable sweatshirts over the years—and I’ll use them until they’re pretty ragged.
My first car was a Ford that had 103,000 miles on it when I bought it. It had 227,000 when I sold it to a junkyard. Between 125,000 and 170,000 miles, I put a lot of money into it repairing and replacing stuff; people kept telling me to get rid of it. But it was cheaper to repair than to replace, so I kept driving it. A guy later bought the car from the junkyard, put a new clutch in it, and drove it for another year after that.