It is important to make children earn their money, so that they appreciate its inherent value. My parents did this by not giving me any, which required me to earn it myself via various menial activities, which prepared me for adulthood.
My first grownup bicycle was a Puch Bergmeister 10-speed that I paid for with the money (all the money) I earned one raspberry season when I was 14.
Here in Austria, a civilized country, there are laws prohibiting that sort of child labour, which necessitates other methods of making children earn the money they receive prior to, say, a trip back to the U.S. to visit their relatives.
Scene: Back yard at dinner-time. Family is sitting down to dinner.
Man: WTF?[Gets up, catches cat.] WTF??? What’s stuck to Louie’s ass now? [Holds cat under his arm, waves around something green.] Look, a hundred dollar bill.
Family: Ew!
Man: Who wants it? Gamma, you want it? Here.
Girl: [Takes hundred dollar bill]
Man: For crying out loud, look, another one! Beta, you want it?
Girl 2: [Takes it]
Man: Geeze, Louie, what did you eat, man? Look, another one! [Gives it to first girl] For Pete’s sake, look, another one! Here! [Gives it to second girl]
Family: … [Look at each other with a new appreciation of the value of money]
I am going to have to start looking at my cats’ asses a LOT more closely.
For a moment I wondered if your cat was an Asian Palm Civet. You know, the kind that shits expensive coffee.
Damn, I wish my parents had realized that we had child labor laws here… I’m told we do, but that never stopped them from making me help my dad with roofing (and spending all my time alternately covered in tar or up to my elbows in gasoline) for an entire summer to earn $50 bucks, which at the time was the most money I’d ever seen. There were never any $100 bills stuck to cat butts in our family, I’m afraid.
i’m guessing this was the first time a cat had $100 bills stuck to its butt in my family too, although one never knows.
speaking of asian palm civets, AKA luwak, i was talking to an indonesian man once who claimed that they are somewhat endangered because they make such delicious satay, as in being the satay, not cooking it. luwak satay is as much a delicacy as luwak coffee, with the advantage that you don’t have to wait around for the beans to come out. it made me wonder how long it would be before luwak coffee farmers simply cut out the middleman, or middleluwak, and start eating and passing the beans themselves, and just labeling them luwak coffee.
Our cat had a kitten with two heads once, but I’m afraid that was it, no money.
More importantly, whatever happened to the Puch Bergmeister?
It was later converted to a human-powered aircraft employed in an infamous Alcatraz escape.