American vehicles changing the meaning of 'old car'

If you're an average American, you drive a 2010 model car.

Well, that's not absolutely true. The average American car is 12.2 years old (meaning it's a 2009.8  model), but if you're in an average American family, you probably have two cars – one that was produced before 2010, one after. They average 12.2 years old.

That's the rather stunning data from S&P Global Mobility. American cars are an average of 12.2 years old!

This is the fifth straight year that American cars reached a new record for average age. Cars are two months older than they were a year ago (and who wouldn't want to be only two months older than they were a year ago?).

This is the continuation of a long-term trend. Back in the 1970s (the furthest back I could find reliable data for the average age of cars), our cars then were much, much, much newer. The average automobile in 1970 was 5.6 years old. By 1980, the average was 6.6,  by 1990, it was 7.6 and by 2000 it was 9.0 years old.

Now the average is 12.2.

Really, the trend makes sense. Because despite what typical car guys say, the average car in 2022 is much more durable than one from 1970. Or 1980.

Our cars last longer because they're designed to last longer.

The Stanhopes are, in this respect, at least, typical Americans. Mrs. Brad and I each have a vehicle. They're the same make and model, although different eras of the cars.

I drive a 2005 Toyota Prius with more than 200,000 miles on it. It's old. There are new rattles. I suspect the mysterious parts that make it a "hybrid" will start falling off soon. The radio only picks up episodes of "The Lone Ranger" and the back seat is filled with "I Like Ike" posters. It has a rumble seat (whatever that is).

Mrs. Brad drives the newer car, which still seems space-age to me. It has dozens of gauges and buttons and knobs (really very few knobs, but I needed a third thing). It has a backup camera! It has cruise control that can measure how far the vehicle is behind other cars!

Her car is  10 years old, so none of those things are really new to a normal person. But to someone who drives a car with a rumble seat (whatever that is), it's miraculous.

So our cars are made better and last longer than they were 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years ago.

When we think of the glory days of American cars (I'll pick 1970, although I suspect most car guys would set that date a few years earlier), we think that old cars were better built for less money. Well, the average new car in 1970 cost about $3,500 and lasted 5.6 years. Adjusted for inflation, that's $26,300 in 2022 dollars. According to the Kelly Blue Book people, the average new car in 2022 cost about $46,000 (yikes!).

So modern cars last twice as long (or more), but cost twice as much. In terms of per-year expense, it's stayed pretty stable.

Kind of like the rumble seat (whatever that is) in my Prius.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

 

 

Coffee is a miraculous life extender, even if you use sweetener

Coffee makes you live forever!

That was a (semi-) logical reaction to a study out of England, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (slogan: Don't forget the second "n" in the first word of our title!) that concluded that moderate consumption of coffee — either with or without sugar — was associated with decreased mortality.

Put simply: People who drink coffee live longer than those (losers) who don't.

Great news, right?

Well, maybe. Because I don't drink coffee black and I don't drink coffee with sugar.

I drink coffee with artificial sweetener and that wasn't determined to be life-extending.

The study determined that of the slightly more than 170,000 people followed for over a decade, those who consumed moderate amounts of coffee (for my purposes, I'll define "moderate" as two or three cups a day. Maybe four. Or five in a bad day. But rarely six, although maybe sometimes. But hardly ever seven.) died at a lower rate of common causes when the data was adjusted for lifestyle, sociodemographic and clinical factors.

Yes. Coffee is the anti-cigarette.

While anyone who smokes is more likely to die of virtually every cause (including catching your body on fire while trying to light a cigarette while weaving in and out of traffic), the study indicates that moderate consumption of coffee with or without sugar makes you less likely to die of everything (including the aforementioned body-on-fire scenario, since you'd likely have coffee with you to put out the inferno).

However, as mentioned earlier, it isn't so clear for those of us who use artificial sweeteners. According to the study's authors, "the association between artificially sweetened coffee and mortality was less consistent." Their conclusion was that it was difficult to know whether artificially sweetened coffee corresponded with longer life.

Come on, man!

Many of us who drink coffee with artificial sweeteners have no other choice. I'm a Type 1 diabetic (something I've bored long-time readers with over the decades), so my choice for coffee is to drink it black (or only with cream) or with sweetener. Since the only people I know who drink black coffee are cops on TV shows and people born before 1930, it's really a choice between drinking coffee with sweetener or not drinking coffee.

Is that really a choice? Again, come on, man!

I'm going to go ahead and take it on faith that it's likely that coffee makes you live longer even if it includes artificial sweeteners.

I say that because that would be good news for me because if I had to stop drinking coffee (and believe me, if I had to drink it black, I would quit), I would likely die sooner.

If for no other reason, because I might take up smoking. And how long would it be before I'd catch my body on fire while trying to light a cigarette while weaving in and out of traffic, without a coffee to douse the flame? Not very long.

Here's the bottom line: Drinking coffee extends your life, because even in the worst-case scenario, it can work as a fire retardant.

Coffee: The wonder drug.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

When a dumb joke in a column prompted a picket line against me

My best journalism story is of a picket line.

Nearly 30 years ago, dozens of members of the Fairfield High School Scarlett Brigade Marching Band protested me outside the Daily Republic building. With signs.

It was 1993, weeks before my second (and final) child was born. I learned there was a potential problem when I got call before heading into the newsroom to start my evening shift. I was told that I might want to come in a back way. The editor had heard from the Vallejo Times-Herald that the high school band was going to picket against me. It could be ugly.

What. Had. I. Done?

That's was my first thought: Me? Really?

A day or so earlier, it had been brought to my attention that some people in the band were mad at me because of a satirical column I'd written in the "Best of Solano" special section put out by the paper. The annual publication celebrated things and places that Daily Republic readers voted as their favorites. Best hamburger. Best park. Best winery. Best local sports team. Best shoe store.

Best local band.

My column was an attempt to add some levity by mocking some of the strange votes. For instance, The Liquor Barn got votes as best winery. A convenience store got votes for best sushi. And for best local band? Well, I stepped in it, unthinkingly.

I don't remember who won, but I'm forever scarred by the fact that I chose to make fun of two recipients of votes – thinking of how different they were: "The Scarlett Brigade Marching Band and Crotch Rot tied for third as best band," I wrote. "Shouldn't their votes be combined? Isn't Crotch Rot the nickname of the Scarlett Brigade brass section?"

Hah hah hah.

Ooops.

I wrote the column in February and probably published two dozen sports columns between then and when the column was published. The students in the band were livid, inspired by the band director. Someone made a copy of that paragraph and passed it around, fanning the flames.

Anyway, I arrived at work on the day in question and things were fine. Nothing going on.

At around 4:30 p.m., chattering started. Then others from the newspaper building came into the newsroom, giggling. "They're out there. They're protesting."

Sigh.

I got up from DOING MY JOB and walked over to the window. A few dozen kids with signs were marching. Signs that said I was evil. At least one said "Stanhope = Crotch Rot." (Which was reasonably clever, to be fair.)

Something had to be done.

However . . . I wasn't ready to go face what I perceived as an angry mob. Didn't they know I wrote it as a joke? That I had forgotten writing it? Didn't they recognize that there were a bunch of silly one-liners in the column?

Nope.

Eventually, a group of kids came in. I tried to explain satire. They said it wasn't funny. Neither of us would give in.

Eventually, they finished up and left. The newspaper printed one of those semi-apologies where you say you're sorry someone was offended. The hard feelings from some of the kids undoubtedly persisted. I moved on and largely forgot about it, except for occasionally telling it as a great newspaper war stories to new friends and colleagues.

Recently, a friend's son–now in his late 40s–told me about being part of the band. He was uncomfortable and may have expected me to be upset at him or to have negative memories.

I didn't. I told him the truth:

"That's a great story. It makes me seem way more important than I ever was."

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Is the government hiding ET information? Survey says yes

Photo by Stephen Leonardi on Unsplash

The truth (as they said in "The X Files") is out there.

A caveat to that saying: According to about half of Americans, "out there" means "hidden in government files."

A recent survey by Morning Consult and Politico revealed that 62% of American voters believe there is extraterrestrial life. Yes, ETs. To emphasize, that's not 62% of all people, it's 62% of those who cast votes for elective office. In other words, 62% of people who not only qualify to vote, but have voted recently. 

That percentage isn't the end of the facts. Of those who believe, nearly four out of five (79%) think the government has concealed the existence of UFOs from the public. In other words, almost half of all voters (my math says 79% of 62% is 49%. If I'm wrong, don't tell me, tell my calculator) believe the government knows about extraterrestrial life and conceals it from us.

That belief is consistent across political parties, ages and gender, with one mild outlier: The older and more conservative you are, the less likely you are to believe in ETs, but by not much a lower level than the general public. (In related news, the older and more conservative you are, the more likely you are to believe that old cars were better, the NFL was better when players didn't complain about concussions and that it was better when you could go to the movies for 50 cents.)

The survey was released as Congress prepared for a late-May hearing on unidentified flying objects – a naming convention that exposes Congress as a place filled with older people. Who says UFOs anymore? UFOs were a big deal in my childhood. We now say ETs, although I'd never heard the term extraterrestrial until the movie "ET" arrived in theaters.

Back to the point. Around half of voters believe not only that extraterrestrials exist, but that the government knows about it and keeps it secret.

To be fair to the majority who believe the government is covering up proof of extraterrestrial life, they have plenty of ammunition: Decades of rumors. Area 51 in Nevada. Dozens of sci-fi movies. All those hill people who claimed to have been captured by UFOs (do ETs have a catch-and-release program?).

Meanwhile, the government hasn't exactly extinguished rumors. In 2007, the Department of Defense launched an ET-seeking initiative called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which is a poorly chosen acronym. The government could have gone with something like Mass Arial Research Tracking Interstellar Aerial Navigation (MARTIAN).

But anyway, the feds launched AATIP in 2007 and didn't acknowledge it until 2017. That's suspicious, too, right?

Perhaps the point of the survey has nothing to do with whether extraterrestrial life exists or whether the federal government knows something and is concealing it from us. Perhaps it shows how much skepticism we have about our leaders.

If they're actually humans and not ETs wearing human skin.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Is America coming apart at the seams? History gives a clue

As we approach our nation's 246th birthday, the United States feels like a difficult member of your immediate family: You know you love them, but you wish they would behave better. And you're not sure how long they'll make it.

It sometimes feels like things are coming apart. If it's not the unparalleled political hostility, it's a worldwide pandemic. If it's not arguments over a virus that killed 1 million Americans, it's a series of Supreme Court decisions that feel designed to increase the tension in the nation. Every day it's something new.

At the midpoint of 2022, are the best years of the great experiment of democracy are behind i? Are we starting a slow (or rapid) descent into strife and division? Are really the Divided States of America? Is the American dream a nightmare?

Maybe not.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but if you think this is the end, realize that we can sometimes be a prisoner of the moment. We forget that things often feel like they're coming apart – until they come back together. To illustrate, think about the history of our nation, going back one generation at a time. Or at least the past few generations. Thirty years is as good a definition of "a generation" as any, so look back 30 year to 1992 and compare it to life today. Seems like things are worse now, right?

Consider the events between 1992 and 2022 that rocked our national confidence:

The Rodney King riots were in 1992. Nine years later, terrorists flew airplanes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field in the worst terrorist attack in American history. Seven years later, we began the worst recession since the Great Depression, as the economy tanked and millions of Americans lost their homes. That was followed by the election of Donald Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Along the way, there were countless mass shootings. To many of us, each of those events felt like the end may be near.

We survived. So far.

We always seem to survive.

Go back another generation, to 1962. John F. Kennedy was in the White House and it was the era of Camelot.

Then we had the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of Kennedy, the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. We had 1967 and 1968, when American cities burned and antiwar protests turned ugly. We had the Vietnam War and Watergate and the inflation/stagflation of the late 1970s. Then we had the AIDs epidemic and Chernobyl and Iran-Contra.

They all felt traumatizing. But we survived. Life was better in 1992 than it was in 1962.

Go back another generation, to 1932. A simpler time, when (if we believe the movies), families were closer and values were shared.

Except it was the height of the Great Depression and unemployment was 24.9%. Over the next three decades America endured the attack on Pearl Harbor and World War II. The Korean War followed seven years later. The Red Scare made Americans distrust anyone who was different. The fight for Civil Rights amped up because we treated people of color atrociously and many political leaders in the South were their worst selves. Kids practiced hiding under their desks in case of nuclear war.

We survived. Life was better in 1962 than in 1932.

Are we coming apart at the seams? It sure feels like it at times. But maybe a healthy perspective is that this is American life. We fight – with one side usually seeming absurd within a generation. We suffer from economic problems or viruses or social distrust.

We survive.

If history is a guide, things in 2052 will feel like they're coming apart. We will suffer through some issues that are unimaginable now. Hopefully, we survive.

Happy birthday, America. You could do a lot better, but I am still (somewhat) hopeful for the future.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Fortunately, life doesn't meet expectations provided by childhood TV shows

It's a writer's cliché to address things that, in our childhood, seemed like they would happen by now: Flying cars. Colonization of the moon. Robot servants.

Those are disappointments (particularly the robots), but let's discuss another series of things that might have surprised us: Confusing events that happened so frequently on TV shows that they seemed a lock to happen to us as adults.

These three things were on TV so often during my childhood that at least I presumed they would happen to me:

Discovering a new student at my school who looks just like me, but wears glasses.

Here's the common plot: A "new student" appears at school who looks exactly like one of the main characters, except for the glasses (or if the character wore glasses, the "new kid" doesn't). This invariably leads to hijinks where the regular character is blamed for something he or she didn't do or the main character gets away with something that was blamed on the "new kid." At age 10, I would said there was a 70% chance that a surprising "twin" would enroll in my junior high or high school. Apparently, that doesn't happen often.

Suffering as someone uses a voodoo doll.

Voodoo was a strangely common theme on TV shows several decades ago – or at least the TV-show version of voodoo, which involved someone making a doll that somewhat resembles another person, then making the doll do crazy things that then happen to the person. Childhood Brad expected to have at least one experience where I couldn't control my limbs or when I inexplicably fell down as my arch enemy twirled a doll version of me. Apparently (fortunately), it doesn't work.

Accidentally bidding on something at an auction.

My childhood experience (on TV) convinced me that every adult ultimately winds up at an auction where expensive pieces of art or museum-level artifacts are being sold to the highest bidder. These auctions are populated by snooty people, many of them with British accents, who use slight nods to make a bid. An unintended twitch or a scratch would be seen as a bid. So was a slight uplift of an arm. At  these auctions, everyone except the TV character was able to control their itching and body movement. Invariably, the main character (who never had money) ended up accidentally winning the auction, putting them in the undesirable spot of having to talk their way out of it. Young Brad was convinced he'd attend an auction and accidentally buy something. Young Brad wasn't confident he'd be able to talk his way out of it. Turns out I've never been to an auction and I've never heard of someone accidentally winning an auction.

I guess TV shows don't accurately reflect real life. Although I'll avoid high-priced auctions, just in case.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Warriors dynasty puts them near (or at?) top of Bay Area sports history

When the Golden State Warriors won their fourth championship in eight years Thursday by beating the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals, they solidified their position as the greatest professional sports dynasty in Bay Area history. Or second-greatest.

I'm not sure.

The Warriors' feat – winning titles in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022 – is further enhanced by the fact that they also reached the NBA Finals in 2016 and 2019. Six Finals appearances in eight years is remarkable.

There are four elite dynasties in Bay Area professional team sports history and all are worthy of being among the great dynasties of their eras. Only one (or two?) are the greatest.

The Fab Four, in reverse order:

4. 2010-2014 San Francisco Giants. The even-year champions won three titles in five years, mesmerizing their fans and convincing many that there was some sort of magic. Buster Posey. Tim Lincecum. Matt Cain. Bruce Bochy. The greatest era in Giants history featured spectacular postseasons, but their highest regular-season win total in that era was 94. And they missed the postseason in 2011 and 2013. They rank fourth, but what a dream era for Giants fans.

3. 1971-1975 Oakland A's. The "Swingin' A's" won three World Series in the middle years of this period and also won division titles in 1971 and 1975. With an amazing collection of talent – Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Sal Bando, Rollie Fingers and a bunch of scrappy, talented teammates – they were the underappreciated even in their era. Unfortunately, the A's had a dreadful owner (sound familiar, A's fans?) and averaged about 12,000 fans per game (the dynasty Giants averaged 40,000). The lack of area-wide passion for the team hurts their standing, as does the fact that they never won more than 94 games in a championship season. Still, three titles and five division championships in a five-year period is amazing.

1b. 1981-94 San Francisco 49ers. The glory days of the 49ers, with five Super Bowls in 14 seasons, including four in the 1980s. This is the traditional gold standard of Bay Area sports eras, with a flood of Hall of Famers (Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott, Bill Walsh), dramatic wins ("The Catch" against the Cowboys, the Montana-to-John Taylor Super Bowl) and an awkward, but successful transition from Montana to Steve Young at quarterback for the final championship. If you weren't around then, it's hard to imagine how one sports team could so dominate a region's passion. But it did.

1a. 2015-2022 Golden State Warriors. Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green have been the heartbeat of the NBA's best team for more than a decade (they rank second, third and fourth among current NBA players for length of time with one team). This year's performance elevates by Curry likely vaults him into the top 10 players in NBA history. Thompson is a beloved free spirit. Green is the heartbeat of the team. The rebirth of Andrew Wiggins solidified the franchise's reputation as an elite developer and refiner of talent. The Warriors have a veteran core and a group young stars (Jordan Poole, Jonathan Kuminga, James Wiseman), which means this could continue for a while. The five titles by the 49ers is within reach.

The Warriors' run of success is the greatest, but the dynasty 49ers' hold on the region was more intense. Let's call it a tie and see if the Warriors can run it back next season and make it five titles in nine years.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Moloka'i vacation shows isolation isn't perfect, even in paradise

If you've dreamed of life on a deserted island, I've got the place for you: Moloka'i, one of the Hawaiian islands.

Warning: It sounds great, but it's only good.

I mean, it's Hawaii, right?

Mrs. Brad and I recently spent 12 days on Moloka'i, made famous as that place Hawaiians with Hansen's Disease (leprosy) were sent from the 1866 until 1969 (10 years after Hawaii became a state!). That area is still populated and you can visit as part of a chaperoned tour, but that's just a small part of the island.

Here's what we knew about Moloka'i before going: It is sparsely populated (only about 7,000 people), there are only a few restaurants, one grocery store and two gas stations.

On the entire island.

Renting a condo near the beach was cheap (less than $100 per night). Fantastic, right? Kind of.

Our condo was in the private part of a hotel resort that went belly up (the hotel, restaurant and golf course were abandoned) in 2008, making it feel like a ghost town. The golf course largely returned to nature over the 14 years of benign neglect, leaving only cart paths. The boarded-up hotel rooms and restaurant felt something from a post-apocalyptic movie. There were maybe 40 people in a huge resort designed for hundreds, who reportedly paid upward of $400 per night to stay there in the 1990s.

Not now.

We learned a lot in our 12 days on Moloka'i. First of all, we discovered that all Hawaiian beaches aren't created equal. Beaches within walking distance of our condo were great, but the water was rough and choppy. Nobody seems to surf on Moloka'i and the few people on the beaches (most of the time, Mrs. Brad and I were the only people there) avoided the water because it was unpleasant.

We also learned that while we don't need nightclubs and trendy restaurants while on vacation, it's nice to have options. We ate four restaurant meals – three of them at a picnic table outside a hamburger place, one a to-go order from the island's only pizza parlor. Otherwise? Microwaved meals, cold cereal, polish dogs.

It was magnificent to have so much time to relax – my favorite vacation perk is the opportunity to nap whenever the desire strikes and having an open schedule. We each read several books, but learned that we need more than that.

Consider our normal schedule: Get up around 6:30 a.m. (no curtains in the condo, so it was light early) and relax for an hour. Then walk along the ocean on the deserted golf course for another hour. Then breakfast and a trip to the beach for three or four hours before coming home.

That made it about 1 p.m. After a shower, it was 1:30 p.m.

Having more to do would be helpful, even in paradise. Fortunately, we vacationed during the NBA playoffs, so there was a game at 2:30 p.m. or 3 p.m. every day so we watched that, ate dinner, then went walking again before sundown.

It was great.

Until it wasn't enough.

It's weird and seems ungrateful to say a Hawaii vacation wasn't great. It was great. It was relaxing and it was Hawaii!

But it was also informative: We learned that completely unscheduled time, with no options, isn't perfect.

It was trouble in paradise. But, again to be fair, it was in paradise.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Lessons of three partially true cliches for graduates (and others)

Editor's note: Following is Brad Stanhope's prepared graduation speech, which he has maintained and updated every year since the late 1980s, yet never delivered.

Hello graduates and congratulations on making it through the toughest few years since World War II. You endured distance learning, wearing masks and a reasonable concern that every cough was the start of COVID. You are experiencing our nation's deepest division since the Civil War. Plus you've had to act like you understand cryptocurrency.

Now graduation, which is filled with advice. Today, I'm presenting three things you'll hear and why they're true and why they're false.

Find something you love to do and you'll never work a day in your life.

Oh, sure. Passion is important, so don't settle for a job if the only benefit is money. (Unless, of course, you really need the money.)

However, doing something you love might be something like watching Netflix all night or getting high all the time. If pursue those, you might never work a day in your life, but you'll also not have any income or happiness.

The truth: Follow what you love, but also learn to love new things. You'll probably change jobs multiple times in your life.

By the way, whoever said, "find something you love to do and you'll never work a day in your life," must never have had a real job. In any job, there are days that feel like work. That's called being human.

It's not the destination, it's the journey.

Oh, sure. If you're too focused on the goal (making a million dollars, playing professional sports, becoming a famous musician, becoming an assistant manager at a fast-food restaurant, earning enough to move out), you can miss the memorable parts along the way. As John Lennon (who died 20-plus years before you were born) said, "life is what happens while you're making other plans," so be sure to enjoy your journey.

The truth: The destination is important. That's what determines the journey, right? (By the way, it's OK to change your destination, which is why our phone GPS allows us to put in new destinations all the time).

By the way, whoever said, "it's not the destination, it's the journey," clearly never drove down I-5 to Disneyland or across Nevada and Utah on I-80. Those journeys suck.

You'll always regret what you didn't do rather than what you did.

Oh, sure. Many of us wish we would have taken that job offer or asked that person on a date or tried out for that part or for that team. We wish we would have moved to a different town or learned that new skill or joined that club.

The truth: We tend to compartmentalize this and forget the wise decisions to skip things – staying home from that party that ended disastrously; turning down a job that would have been a catastrophe; asking out that person who ended up as a serial killer (OK, maybe extreme). Sometimes, it's wise to not take action.

By the way, whoever said, "you'll always regret what you didn't do rather than what you did" never talked to someone in prison.

Here's some solid, reasonable advice: Follow your passion (within reason). Enjoy the journey (but also remember the destination). Take risks (but not all of them, particularly the kind that you'll regret forever).

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Spending $114 (or less) on these six items is the smartest investment you every make

Selling inexpensive, but long-lasting household items has to be a scam, right?

Consider this: Based on my research (looking for the normal sales price on Amazon), you can spend $114 and buy six essential household items that you never need to replace.

Invest $114 in 2022 dollars and you're done. Forever. There must be a trick to this, right? If so, I can't figure it out. How do companies make money when they sell items cheaply and we never need to replace them?

I'll share the six items and when your read each, think about when you last purchased one. Odds are, you've had the item for years and won't need a replacement for years. Maybe forever.

The sensational six:

1. Ironing board ($30). An amazing feat of engineering, this folds up and slips beside your chest of drawers or beside your coats in the hall closet or something else. Once you buy an ironing board, you're set for life (to prove this point, think about the ironing board in your childhood home. It's no different than what you have now). Do ironing board manufacturers sell these so they can sell you irons? Maybe that explains it.

2. Clothes hamper ($25). Not a laundry basket, which suffices for many of us. This goes in a bedroom corner or in the closet. Maybe it's made of wicker or plastic or metal. But it lasts a long, long, long time. Do clothes hamper manufacturers make their money off college kids who destroy these? Maybe that's the profit.

3. Kitchen trash can ($30). This price seemed high to me, but maybe that's because we have a cheap version. Whether it's the kind with the pedal that opens the lid or if it fits in a cupboard (correct location for that option: under the sink, right side), the kitchen trash can lasts forever. We had a hideous yellow plastic version my whole childhood. They last forever and are cheap.

4. Plunger ($18). You probably bought your first plunger after the first experience of learning you needed one. Once you have one, there's (hopefully) no need for a replacement – plungers last forever. They're the CPR of household necessities: rarely used, always valuable. And also unclear how the plunger industry makes a lot of money.

5. Dustpan ($10). A $10 dustpan is likely an elite dustpan, since even one that costs $5 lasts forever. Brooms may break or fray, but the old, reliable dustpan only needs to be replaced when you lose it – and how would you lose a dustpan? Of course, you could go for the Cadillac of dustpans – the kind school janitors have, where the handle stands up and you don't have to bend over to use it. Go ahead, moneybags. The rest of us will use this long-lasting, low-priced dustpan.

6. Flyswatter ($1). How many flyswatters were in your childhood home? One. It probably had a tear in the plastic, but who cared? The job is to kill flies and that doesn't require a perfect swatting surface, just enough to get it done. This $1 investment lasts a lifetime.

All of those items have been in your house for a long time and you won't need to buy replacements this year or next year. That $114 is the best investment you'll ever make.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.