A reality check for Clementine

Clementine checked her email early on Thursday morning, long before she knew the yarn lady would be awake.  She usually didn’t find anything other than ads for Canadian catnip, but today there was one from Rudy.

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To: clem@catlover.com
From: peepmissrudyandlt@gmail.com
Subject: Take a reality check

Clem – have you looked at the prices of some of the things you’re posting on your little ‘wishlist’ blog???  By the way, you forgot the link for the princess bed, I had to look that one up to find it.  It costs $349!!!  And that Catpod?  It’s $70.  The 2-level Kitty Cloud?  That’s $65.  Well, I know from my Daddy that money just doesn’t grow on trees, even if those leaves are green most of the time.  And that Cat Library??  Well, if it was even available, it would probably cost close to $1000! 

In case you don’t know about money values, let me clue you in a bit.  Your favorite cat food costs a little more than $1 for just one serving.  You probably don’t get it every day, right?  It’s because the yarn lady would go broke if she gave it to you all the time.  Humans have bills they need to pay.  Mortgages, electric bills, phone bills, cable bills, gas for their cars, insurance for their cars and houses, food, medical bills.  For most people these days their expenses are nearly as much money as they get from their jobs.  And the yarn lady can’t even work!  She lives on her Social Security money – which probably is just enough to cover her expenses.  I’ve heard her talking to my Mommy about how she’d like to do things like replace her counter tops, but she can’t afford to do it.  And you know what?  That counter top is probably about the same amount of money as that princess cat bed. 

Unless you want to give your human mommy a major dose of the guilts, I think you should start posting stuff that doesn’t cost so much money. 

Respectfully,

Miss Rudy
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Clem was mortified.  The yarn lady never talked about money to her, but then she was a cat.  She probably wouldn’t expect her to know about income and expenses.  So, if most people didn’t earn a lot of extra money, why were there so many commercials on television about stuff to buy?  A big-screen television probably cost more than a cat bed.  Wait, she could look that up.  She was pretty sure it was Best Buy that had all the ads for tv sets.  The first one listed cost $899.99.  Why didn’t they just say $900?  Silliness. 

But how much were those expenses that Rudy mentioned?  There was a small pile of bills on the computer table, since the yarn lady had paid them but hadn’t filed them yet.  Hmmm.  Her electric bill, which she happened to know was the heat, hot water, lights and appliances was $143 for one month.  So, a television cost six times as much as a month’s worth of electricity, and the cat bed she’d listed cost twice as much and a bit more. 

She thought about the whole advertising thing.  Sometimes when the noisy girl came over she put on cartoons, and those shows had lots of commercials for toys.  So, the kids would see the commercials and want the stuff, and ask their parents for it for Christmas.  The parents would feel guilty if they couldn’t buy them the stuff they wanted, so most of them probably ended up spending more than they should on Christmas gifts.  This didn’t seem right to her.  Why did the television channels let companies put on so many ads?  They should know it wasn’t right.  Hmmm, she’d send Rudy an email on this one.  She was both a lot older and wiser than Clem so maybe she’d know.