Whatever, my point is that you can buy roughly fifty really useful bananas for the price of a single, not very good Mumford and Sons CD.
Of course, it is a truism that something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Personally, I would gladly pay five dollars for a banana if I wasn't aware that grocers sell them for twenty-five cents each. Perhaps I might even fight a gorilla for one. Would a teenage girl do battle with a gorilla for a Mumford and Sons CD? I think not. But then it's unlikely any self-respecting gorilla would want the wretched CD in the first place (despite the fact that only a filthy, flea-bitten ape could truly relate to the lyrical content in any meaningful way). But I digress.
Perhaps the most bewildering set of valuations occurs in the pet dog market, where the answer to "how much is that doggy in the window?" ranges from many thousands of dollars to free-to-a-good-home. Free can get you a cute little terrier capable of learning enough tricks to be called a canine Houdini; many thousands of dollars, on the other hand, might burden you with a cretinous Labrador Retriever unable to retrieve its snout from its own anus; and vice versa, obviously. So caveat-emptor when considering a canem, as Cicero might advise.
Lola was a rescue puppy; meaning she was free to adopt provided we paid the rescue part, an operation described to us as a sort of Black Hawk Down and Lassie Come Home mash up. Apparently it's expensive and dangerous to transport a cuddly bundle of joy across state lines. But Lola has been worth every penny, even if you add in the total cost of all the shoes, cushions and rugs that she's ripped to shreds and destroyed. Worth more even, I have to say, than an entire boat load of bananas. After all, you can't put a price on a face like this.
