The cost of a life

Yesterday Gabrielle spent the day at a friend’s house. Recently they bought a dog and she was anxious to see it. She got home around dinnertime and while we ate, her sisters wanted a report. “What color is it? How big is it? Is it a puppy? How old is it?” They peppered her with questions, which she did her best to answer.

“They rescued the dog from a shelter,” Linda filled in, “And when they picked it up they were told it was 9 months old.” Apparently, though, the dog has had some trouble and spent some time at the vet getting fixed up. It was through the vet our friends discovered maybe the puppy was only 4 or 5 months old. They also discovered there’d be a hefty bill to accompany this new information.

This is nothing, though. A few weeks ago at work I was setting up for a big presentation coming the following week. It’s a tedious process where I cover the walls with my seasonal designs with each style arranged alongside the various colors and patterns it will be offered in. Imagine the many stripes a golf polo might come in then multiply it by 25 - 30 polos and you begin to get the idea of what the walls look like.

I prefer to go through this process alone, often wearing my iPod to keep me company but on this day there happened to be another designer in the room along with one of our merchandisers. I’ll call her Nancy and the merchandiser Jared. Nancy had recently broken up with her boyfriend over a misunderstanding and was relaying her story to Jared. It seems the boyfriend was unemployed and spent most of his time on the couch while Nancy worked. This went on for several months and apparently, "Not once did he get his lazy butt off easy street and hunt for work." While for most, this alone would cause a break-up, Nancy is patient and tried to be understanding. It wasn’t until the boyfriend left the front door open, letting Nancy’s dog run into the street and get hit by a car that the relationship became irreparable.

“How bad was the accident? Jared asked.

“Well, it cost me $20,000 to keep the little guy alive.” She said this without skipping a beat, in a matter of fact way that suggested, “who wouldn’t spend 20 grand to keep a dog alive.”

In my opinion this is absolute insanity but we're all different.

What’s the most you’d spend to keep a pet alive?