It’s funny. I used to read lots of older books when I was growing up. A couple of centuries ago, it was considered wise to hang on to things like cord or string, just because they could be useful. Of course, back then, we had so much less stuff floating around. Now we have problems with hoarding stuff that might some day be useful. (And too much stuff in general!)

Distracted, but on the stories - I was remembering a parable (a story from a book geared towards schoolchildren) of two boys, one of whom opened a package tied up with string carelessly and threw away the string and paper wrapping; the other boy carefully untied the string, removed and folded the paper. The payoff was that the one who saved it made something useful out of it later, whereas the boy that wasted those things went without. Of course these days… while it is good to reduce, reuse, recycle, when it comes to hoarding, a lot of times it’s more healthy to throw away than keep…