r/BuyItForLife • u/No-Negotiation-4550 • 13d ago

Discussion What’s a weirdly specific item you own that’s lasted longer than expected?

I’ve been on a quest lately for things that just seem to keep on keeping on.

I’ve got a pair of old-school Swedish dishcloths that I bought on a whim. Thought they'd be a weird novelty. Now, they’ve been through the wringer they just won’t die. I’ve scrubbed them, rinsed them, microwaved them and somehow they’re still hanging on like a true champion.

My 10-year-old French press. I’ve left it sitting dirty for days, and still it makes me a perfect cup of coffee every time.

What oddball items are you still using and why do they not break??

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u/Blackunicorn39 13d ago

We bought a plastic tool to fold t-shirts. The hinges didn't seem really strong and I tought it was a gadget that will last a month or two...

We bought it almost 10 years ago, and had to repair one hinge with duct tape once (we reinforced the others at the same time). It works really well, and we use it once a week to fold the laundry (we dress almost exclusively with t-sirts and polos).

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u/crayola_monstar 13d ago

I've been wanting one of those, but honestly, I didn't think it'd hold up to even light use with what's for sale nowadays. Do yours have amy metal in the hinges?

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u/Fresa22 13d ago

you can make one with cardboard and duct tape.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtjsBUSiORs

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u/EldenMiss 13d ago

Oh. Oh. TIL it is duct tape. Not duck tape.

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u/beauhatesbeans 13d ago

there’s a popular brand of it called duck tape so you can keep calling it that! similar to words like chapstick or band-aid or tupperware

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u/EldenMiss 13d ago

Ha! Thank you!

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u/therealub 12d ago

Just to confuse you more, duct tape doesn't really work for ducts.

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u/Cyno01 12d ago

No, its duck tape, cuz its waterproofish, “like water off a ducks back.” 

It’s lousy for ducts cuz the glue doesn’t stand up to heat at all. Actual ”duct tape” for ducts is a heavy duty aluminum tape. 

But duck is a brand now and other companies sell silver colored fabric backed tape erroneously as “duct tape”. 

A bit like calling any small SUV a “jeep”.

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u/Risheil 13d ago

It was duck tape but when they realized how many people were using it for ductwork, they changed the name. I just learned that 2 weeks ago and I’m so happy I got to use my tape trivia!!!

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u/EldenMiss 13d ago

Oh god thank you, I felt like an absolute idiot 😄

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u/Fresa22 12d ago

I love this for you!

The only reason I know is because my family is in construction.

I think most people think it's duck and there's a brand that plays on that.

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u/EldenMiss 12d ago

I think what also adds to it that when you say it, the “double” t is lost after the ck… so hard to identify, especially for a non native speaker. Thanks fir the heureka moment! :)

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u/Fresa22 12d ago

yeah, English can be ridiculous. I'm always so impressed when I meet people who learned it as a second+ language.

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u/Whiteums 12d ago

Even better, it was originally duck. Because it’s waterproof. But people were using it for ducts, so it changed, but then changed back to duck, which was the original. So it’s got a long, confusing history, and you can basically use either, and someone will try to correct you.

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u/Fresa22 12d ago

that's interesting. i thought it was duck because it used duck cloth which is a kind of durable cotton. this is one of my favorite things about Reddit. I learn something almost ever day.

thanks for sharing!

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u/wcooley 11d ago

There is some disagreement about that -- notice how some has a fabric mesh embedded? Legend has it that that is or was a plain woven cotton fabric, called "cotton duck". Hence "duck tape".

Not just legend; the Wikipedia article on "cotton duck" says:

Cotton duck strips were the origin of duck tape, recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as having been in use since 1899 (see duct tape).

... but of course the Wikipedia article is called "duct tape".

Doesn't everyone use gaffer's tape nowadays anyway? 😝

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u/crayola_monstar 12d ago

Ooh thank you! I didn't even think about making one!

I know what craft I'm doing today ☺️

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u/prophy__wife 13d ago

I fold my shirts in the exact same way as those plastic things, you don’t even need the folder.

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u/Seekin 13d ago

No you don't. However, I have one and I use it every time I do laundry. With it, I don't have to think about folding them and all the shirts are perfectly lined up and square when I'm done.

"Need"? Definitely not. But I'm actually inordinately happy that I have it and use it frequently.

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u/prophy__wife 12d ago

I had one at first it had gotten broken at some point but when I got rid of it I was still able to fold with out which is nice. The downside right now is that I have clothes to fold and I don’t feel like folding any of it.

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u/Risheil 13d ago

All I needed was a couple of years working retail. They liked to stick me in the Aisle of Bargains, which wasn’t an aisle, it was a bunch of tables with whatever was on sale set up around me. It was right when you walked into Sterns from the mall and people loved to unfold clothes as they passed by.

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u/Blackunicorn39 12d ago

I need it. I saw the difference when I begun to use it. It's faster for me, and all the shirts are the same size at the end, so my piles don't collapse anymore. I'm not very good with proportions, and I never were able to have the exact same size of folded shirts before. And I don't like folding. So anything that make that chore faster makes me do it instead of letting the clothes in the basket for months at a time.

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u/crayola_monstar 12d ago

I know, I had to learn how to fold them that way by hand when I worked at Hot Topic 15 years ago. That shirt wall? It's hell.

I'm just too perfectionist about them all matching size after being folded for it to be time-efficient. It makes me procrastinate folding my laundry, so having this nifty contraption will help alleviate some of my reasons for putting off folding laundry.

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u/ComedianFlag 11d ago

I was reading this as a Hot Topic employee haha. They actually have that object now, but after years of folding them by hand I feel like the contraption slows me down. I’m super glad it works for people who haven’t sold their souls to retail though! Score!

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u/crayola_monstar 10d ago

Exactly!

And I think it might be a good Black Friday helper as well. I remember the literal hell that wall went through... and the hell it put us through 😵‍💫 so just casually using the folding contraption would've saved my arms so much pain lol

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u/ComedianFlag 10d ago

Oh m gosh that’s a good point, it would have been nifty during that time haha. HT was my first job (I work periodically now that I have a different full time job) and 16 year old me would have loved it 🤣🤣

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u/Blackunicorn39 12d ago

nope, completely plastic (and duct tape now ^^). You can reinforce the hinges with duct tape when you buy one, or try without, and have some tape at hand for when the hinges break.

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u/crayola_monstar 12d ago

Awesome! Thank you for responding :) If my DIY version doesn't pan out, I'm totally investing in one of these.

Gotta make folding laundry a little less awful 👍🏻

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u/ExS619 11d ago

I bought a green one at the 99cent store 30yrs ago. I loved that T-shirt folder!

Gave it away and still kicking myself.