Some years ago, I was in the line at the grocery store.
I was behind a woman who was buying several plants that appeared to be dead. I told her she should go back over to the plant department because I saw some nice ones over there.
She said that, no, she wanted those because if she did not buy them “nobody else would”. She was planning on nursing the dead plants back to life!
It is some sort of misplaced altruism.
I have a friend in the office at her job “rotates” the paper in the printer so they all get a chance to fulfill their destiny, and not get thrown out after getting too old. No joke.