I love buying used things. I live in a place where you can buy anything used. You can even buy used medical equipment. My iPhone 3Gs is used. It was so much
cheaper for me than for the fool who bought it retail. It had a few
pictures and a dozen or so contacts on it. I wiped it out and started
fresh.
My family only bought used cars. I personally have never
owned a new car. Why would anyone want to? I like things with a bit of
history. Don’t get me wrong, I buy underwear new. I buy shoes and socks
new.
My favorite thing to buy used is books. I like reading
current novels. I love reading old classics. Instead of picking up the
latest printing from Barnes and Noble with the catchy painting cleverly
selected as a new cover to the same old book that I should have read ten
years ago; I choose to go to the used bookstore and score myself a worn
down, dog-eared copy. I do this for several reasons:
It looks way cooler on a shelf that way.
Books in a home are mainly kept for impressing your new friends. Old
books that seem to have been with you since you were in junior high
school are way more impressive than the latest cover art on a classic
novel
Sometimes people will underline things
This is
cool. It has happened to me more than a couple of times. Apparently the
book had been used in a class and the student underlined, highlighted
and even jotted notes in the margins. This makes the story more exciting
to me for some reason, like I’m sharing it with someone else. Every
once in a long while the book is a gift from one person to another and
there is a little dedication handwritten in on the blank pages in the
front. That is the absolute best.