Respect lacking

There exists a dichotomy in the United States of Anomaly.

Nothing is venerated.

In Japan they respect the elderly. In Rome it’s the ruins. Israel, the antiquities. Egypt, the pyramids. Peru has the Inca Trail. We got the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. In Easter Island crumbling statues are historic. In New York a 25-year-old building’s a slum.

Out west we got the wonder of the world, the Grand Canyon. Here in the east, we’d fill that sucker in and make it a two-way street.

We’re a wash ’n’ wear society. Wife grows senior, turn her in for a junior. Demolish skyscrapers. Build bigger, taller, richer. This year’s shoes are spiky. Last year’s shoes are clunky. Lose them. Garter belts, stockings, out. Bikinis, bare legs, in.

The “Tonight” show’s old Jay heading for the ol’ corral? Two Jimmys are riding in. Fie on fountain pens. Buy a Bic that blots. Shove your landline. Carry an iPad, a beeper, a walkie-talkie. Ax the fax for e-mail.

Today propriety’s out. Technology’s in. Phones so modern that after dinner one belch can activate your home computer. Got an ancient dinosaur cell that works with your fingers? Please. Get the kind that answers to your eyes, your mouth, your thoughts. All that won’t answer to it is your kid.

We’re busy communicating with Jupiter, Mars and Uranus. We’re on the moon. We’re rocketing to downtown Pluto. We’re monitoring black holes in the galaxy. Meanwhile, Long Beach and Seagate are in the toilet. Revere the Ottoman Empire? How about the Rockaways?

Collectors tossed their old comic books. With the money neighbors got from saving Superman they bought an island in Tahiti.

Remember Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, Edward R. Murrow, real reporters? Now it’s fake tans, plastic surgery, hairpieces, Chiclet teeth, long straight yellow hair and rinky-dink readers who think a rock is the country that doesn’t like us.

Bacon, no. Veggies, yes. Milk, no. Soy, yes. Twinkie, uh-uh. Pizza, sure. Alfalfa, not white bread. We care about drones, not God. The only marrieds are same-sexes. Remember the names Barbara, Harriet, Ralph? Now it’s Jaden, Arden and Tiffany Montezuma.

Inventors are creating driverless cars. Who but Lindsay Lohan wants that?

HOWEVER, we’re crazed for anything anyone throws out. We dump old stuff just so we can buy more old stuff. Trash is in. Vintage is chic. Garbage is the new collectible.

It’s garage sales. Yard sales. Rummage sales. Tag sales. Lawn sales. Attic sales. Moving sales. Estate sales. Junk sales. Salvation Army sales.

People are loading up on what others are unloading. Curio shops feature “slightly used” jewelry trinkets, carved objets d’art, ivory whatevers, jade whatevers. Big vases. Guaranteed one-of-a-kinds — until they drag out two other identical one-of-a-kinds. Every 20 minutes for 20 years they run “Lost our lease” sales. Finally one sign added, “This time we really mean it.”

At a luncheon I admired a woman’s handsome black leather jacket with red leather appliqué. “Got it at a thrift store in Florida,” she volunteered, although nobody asked her.

A high-class lady, crammed into a tight Armani, was fund-raising for giraffes with acne. She told me — although why she couldnt’ve kept her mouth shut, who knows —“I found this at a secondhand store.”

Everything’s getting reused. Requirements are getting lowered. Next up future Boeings will come fitted with rotated tires. Kindergarten kids’ “gently used” Crayolas will resell to list Mommy’s choices for Oprah’s Book Club.

Wait awhile and your hearing aid will be on a party line. My nephew’s waiting for the recycyled CD “Gov. Christie’s Greatest Meals.”

Me, I bought boots at a Hamptons consignment shop. My closet’s littered with unworn boots. This secondhand pair didn’t even fit. My brain is so fuzzy that I spent $12 on footwear in which some stranger’s feet had walked. Why would I do this? Because the stupid things were a bargain. Far cheaper than what the podiatrist eventually charged me.

Manhattan’s littered with resale shops. Talking through her nose, one manageress sniffed the castoffs must be cleaned, must be a designer, must have no seams frayed, no hems torn, no dirt marks and must have all the buttons. What was missing the buttons was her. If my suit were that perfect, I’d have kept it.

But the thing got bought.

Maybe it’s eBay, White Elephant sales, or cleaning-house sales, clearing out the basement hand-me-downs have become hot numbers. Clutching her Oscar, Julia Roberts was in a ’60s black velvet job. At a party a “gently used” emporium shopkeeper appraised my beaded suit. With inflation who could afford to buy it secondhand? If you throw in the cleaning, he’d have charged more for it than when I bought it new. Buying cheap takes big money.

Clothes wear out, fall out or spread out. Or get off-loaded because of spring cleaning. Or even to pocket a few so the chintzy husband doesn’t know.

What’s next? A recycled fast-food chain? Born Again Burgers?