I might be an anachronism

Yesterday, the painting concluded with that last coat of gloss on the skirting board and door frame. The end is nigh I tell you! It's nigh!

But it occurred to me while I was cleaning the paintbrush I'd used for the undercoat, that I might be becoming an anachronism. Or may even already have achieved it. I mean, do people still clean their paintbrushes?

It's one of those things I do without thinking. One of those "it's the way it is" things. My Dad always - almost religiously - cleaned his brushes, the same way he looked after all his tools. Carefully, lovingly, and with precision. And so, following his example, do I.

On the other hand, back then, paintbrushes and the like were relatively expensive. I don't know what proportion of his wage he would have had to spend on a new brush back in, say, 1965, but I can guarantee it's more than the 0.37% of my (weekly) salary that a new Harris costs. I know the price because I just had to buy a new one. One of my cleaning sessions wasn't quite so diligent as it should have been. A couple of days too late, in fact, to prevent the brush turning into a zombie.

When we had the bathroom done last year I noticed how the tradesmen bought new brushes (at our expense, naturally), used them once and threw them away. I'd never even considered doing this until then. To me, brushes were just part of your toolkit, to be used, reused, and looked after. Now I'm wondering if the best way to avoid filling the house with white spirit fumes, and dumping nasty VOCs down the loo, is just to not clean them in the first place. It's a bit of a culture shock that is, believe me.