July 07, 2003

Life With a Dog ... Pricelist

Well, the pooch has been returned to her loving owners and I must admit, there is a small hole left over in my world. Not too worry though, I filled it with beer and feel much better. Perhaps it is time to reflect on the fiscal implications of keeping a dog:

  • Dog - R0 (you get them for free when your neighbours leave their gate open or friends go away)

  • Dog food - R3000 (this is if your dog is a boerbul, divide by 2 for any other dog)

  • Socks - R20 (depending on how long it takes you to figure out that it is the dog eating the socks and not the washing machine)

  • Detergents - R65 (for cleaning up faeces in the pre-banishment stage)

  • Poop-Scoop - R150 (made from empty HTH pool chlorine bottle. Add R30000 if you don't already have a pool)

  • Pot plants - R300 (why do we keep them in the first place?)


So, presuming you don't have a swimming pool, the tally comes to roughly R33535 ZAR. That is roughly 3 pounds sterling.

But can we put a price on puppy love? What is a dog worth at the end of the day? They don't help the dishes (well, not that I'm going to openly confess to it), they don't contribute well to conversation, they keep you awake at night by trying to sniff their way through your bedroom window and they don't earn an income.

However, they do:

  • cut down on fertilizer costs (nuff said)

  • lick burglers to death

  • keep stray cats out the garden and hence muddy kitty footprints of your car windscreen

  • look at you funny on demand

  • attract all the fleas out of the furniture

So yes, pooch has gone home and I am divided between sad and glad. In retrospect I'm going to upgrade my hamster collection and see if I can't cut down on the electricity bill.

Posted by will at July 7, 2003 04:30 PM
Comments

Get a gold fish. They can do *everything* a puppy can, except for licking their own, err, nads. This is mostly because fish have weird-assed internalised nads, almost like a puppy that has serious problems.

Posted by: Charl P. Botha on July 7, 2003 06:27 PM

For your European audience: how many Euro / US$ is a Rand approximately?

Otherwise, I think I agree with Charl: a goldfish seems more enjoyable than a dog...

Posted by: Ari on July 8, 2003 09:40 AM

I am fighting the urge to make derogatory comments on the volatility of the Euro/US$/Rand exchange but it is hard, so hard.

Unlike a dog, a pes durada (don't look that up on babelfish) can not catch, fetch, play dead and you cannot kick it in the arse if you've had a bad day.
Like a dog, a pes durada can eat its own faeces, act stupid and is instantly replacable in the event of an "accident".

You're only helping to make the choice harder. I still think I'm going to go with 300 hamsters. With enough staples, I'm sure I can inter-connect into the shape of a dog.

Posted by: Will on July 9, 2003 10:20 AM
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