Ordinary street clothes, underwear, socks, t-shirts, not the things you wear while participating in the rodeo, get holes and rips in them after a few years. I wonder if most of the wear and tear comes from the washing machine - or perhaps from the chemicals in detergents. I usually wash clothes on the 'permanent press' setting and I don't often use bleach. Still, it seems that my t-shirts and socks turn into rags too quickly.

I wonder if this was better or worse in the old days. Washing clothes on a washboard by hand must have been tough on the clothes. I don't know how the washing machines of earlier years compared to those of today. Perhaps I should blame the fragility of my garments on "those foreign textiles", but would that make sense?