Saturday, May 10, 2008

What does this have to do with the price of tea . . .

Disclaimer: This isn't going to be an eloquent Blog, like my good friend Betty's. This is just going to be random thoughts that I have, and it's going to be mostly unrevised. It might not even make sense philosophically or on a sentence level.



What does this have to do with the price of tea . . .

In grad school, I hung out with a guy who wouldn't buy a CD if the price of the album exceeded the number of songs times $1.00. He would be especially persuaded by an album that had 15 songs on it and only cost $11.00. I remember asking him if it mattered how long the songs were (or of what quality). I don't remember his answer.

I'm not so concerned about the price of music. As far as I'm concerned, paying $.99 + tax on iTunes for a song is a good deal. (I guess grad school guy would too.) If I listen to a five minute song twelve times over the years, that's pretty cheap entertainment--it's about a dollar for an hour of enjoyment.

It's clothing that bothers me. What if I buy a skirt for sixty dollars, and I wear it six times? That's ten dollars each time I wear it. But that's only a portion of the outfit. What if the shirt cost $40 and I wear it only 4 times before I decide that it doesn't fit right? Add to that shoes, socks, underwear, a tank top or cami, and any accessories (for me, this is the cheapest part; I usually have no accessories), and getting dressed might cost as much as renting a car. If you happen to be a fancy dresser, your cost might equal booking a nice hotel room for a great vacation.

I don't really have a problem with spending money on clothes. I think that we get what we pay for, so it might be better to buy the $110 skirt instead of the $30 one (of course, that's not true all of the time either). Clothes are important. Clothes are necessary. And it's good to want to look our best.

I'm not really saying that we should wear our clothes 100 times each to make our total outfit cost for the day as low as possible. I just think it's interesting how much something costs me each time I wear it. It's sort of like my bus pass. For a partial year pass, I paid $45.00. I've used the pass on two separate days, for a total of 4 bus rides. That means each bus journey cost me $11.25, and I guarantee you that NO bus ride is worth that much money. If I ride the bus 42 more times, then my bus rides will only end up costing me $1.00. But, do I want to ride the bus 42 more times?

I recently downloaded a song from iTunes. It's 3:58 long, and to date, I've listened to it 11 times. This means I've already enjoyed almost 45 minutes of music for only $.99 + tax. I think that's money well spent.



Entry Outtakes:

If you add it all up, getting dressed might cost as much as renting a car--if you're a moderate dresser--or a hotel room--if you're a fancy dresser.

This is a better sentence (although the punctuation may be off) than what appears above, but it had to be sacrificed for the greater good of the paragraph.

7 comments:

Betty Edit said...

I guess that would explain why I keep so many clothes that I haven't worn very much... Eventually I assume I will try to lower my "total outfit cost for the day" by wearing them.

Very interesting observations.

Music is always worth it if it's a good orchestra.

What happened to the last post, eh?

Oh, by the way, I think that's funny that you included an outtake for your blog.

Olive Kite said...

I had to remove the original post, because, as you pointed out, it was riddled with illogical statements. I still maintain, however, that we use far too many letters in our words AND that often vowels aren't all that necessary (except to kids learning to read, maybe).

At least Noah Webster trimmed out a few extra letters for us. And Melvil Dewey (of Dewey Decimal fame) changed the spelling of his first name from Melville to Melvil. And for a while, he spelled his last name Dui, which is more economical than Dewey, but doesn't work for modern readers (it looks too much like the acronym DUI). Dewey could have always changed his last name to Dwy. We'd get how to pronounce it, right? Okay, some of us might say Doughy and some might say Dewey and some Dawey or Dawoy. But who cares :-)!


Let us all be spelling reformers!
Together we can do it, one letter at a time!

(BUT, maybe we should do it a bit more judiciously than in changing Dewey to Dwy.)

-Olv Kt

Alicia said...

It's nice to know that I'm not the only one that calculates the per use cost of clothes when I buy them. Maybe we all do it in the back of our minds. I agree that quality is important. I enjoy wearing quality clothes that I got on sale so much more than any other type of clothing. But there's also the enjoyment factor to consider. I bought two pairs of Frye boots last Fall, just because I like the way I feel when I wear them. Instant attitude. :-)

Olive Kite said...

Today I wore dark wash jeans, a button-up shirt that's lightly striped, and 2-toned tennis shoes to my all day seminar, and I FELT GREAT!

literaqueen said...

Another reason to come to Morgantown-- Gabriel Brother's. Best place to buy clothing because it's cheap, decent quality, and a surprise what inventory will be there any given day. I think my "total outfit cost for the day" today is about $40 (and that's counting an accessory).

Olive Kite said...

Is that the cost of this particular wearing or of the entire outfit?

Olive Kite said...

Oh, I should read better--the total cost for the day! Of course, if you wear that outfit again tomorrow, the price will go down.