Dolly Excessories

When I got to the $100 bike, I threw the catalogue across the room and called it offensive.  The Mate wanted to know why it took me that long.

I'd been telling him about the $34 outfits and the $20 dog hiking accessory set and the $110 stable (horse extra).

It was the $100 bike, a bike designed as an accessory for a doll, that got to me.  You can buy an actual children's bike for $100.  Not that I'd spend that much on a bike for The Offspring.  My mother found one at a yard sale for $5, and I've got a hand-me-down stashed in a closet for when he outgrows that one.

And yes, you can also buy an outfit for a kid, an actual kid, for $34 or even a lot less.  Dog hiking accessories, on the other hand, would run more than $20.  I don't know why it was the bike.

I also don't know why the American Girl catalogue ended up in my mailbox.  Maybe the company got wind of the fact that I bought an aftermarket American Girl product from Amazon for one of my nieces.

On the one hand, if doting parents or aunts or grandmas can afford this stuff for their darlings, I suppose there's no reason they shouldn't buy it.  But the $100 bike collided in my head with families who can't afford to eat three solid meals a day or get health care or buy books.

And I flung the damn thing across the room.