The MBD Endorsement: Paying for Quality

Sweetpea has turned me on to this thing, a philosophy I suspect she got from her grandfather or someone equally wise, where she believes in paying a premium for high-quality goods, rather than filling your life with cheap, disposable junk you'll likely end up replacing several times anyway.

I'm not talking about throwing money away on flashy shit like $400 Japanese denim, nor am I equating higher cost with higher quality necessarily. But there exist certain things—the steak frites at Tallulah, European sports cars—that are totally worth the extra cheddar and some things whose discounted price tag doesn't offset the general crumminess of the product.

A product, for example, such as Office Depot brand ink. I thought I was so smart buying a generic OD ink cartridge when my printer needed a refill but yesterday, after two months of streaky, faint, useless prints, el cheapo cartridge crapped out. Half full, of course. The blinking error lights on my printer are like three tiny little Nelson Muntzes haw-hawing my "saving" five bucks by going cheap on my ink. Lesson learned, Office Depot. Lesson learned.