Financial Lessons

I am sure you think this post is going to be on how to become a millionaire, well ... it's not! It is about a silly kids game my boys love to play. It is Webkinz.
My mother bought each of my boys a Webkinz for their birthdays when she came to visit earlier this spring. For those of you who don't know what these are, they are really just a brilliant marketing ploy to get kids addicted to the internet and waste their youth online. You buy a stuffed animal Webkinz, which has a bar code assigned and you register your new "pet" online. Then you play games over and over again to gain virtual cash for your pet. With your riches you purchase a home, food, furniture, toys, vacations, etc.
Well, our little boys LOVE this and beg each day to do it. I hear this line quite often, "if I don't play with my pet he will DIE!" Yeah right I thought! But they do in fact decline in health if they are not played with online! If they are not put to bed each night they decline in health and have to be taken to the doctor, given medicine, etc .. which all has to be bought!
Anyway, Tate enjoyed playing so much that he accumulated a lot of nice things for his pet, including a yard, BBQ, bedroom set, food, clothing, and two motorcycles. Now, just so you know you can choose from a top of the line BBQ or a cheap one, expensive Harley Davidson motorcycles, or dirt bikes, and the list goes on. Come to find out that Tate is not a cheap kid, he enjoys the high life, purchasing the biggest and best that he could offer his pet, whose name is Parley by the way, he is a dragon.
Well, Tate was enticed by the travel agency online and sold everything he could to send Parley on a vacation around the world, because, as you well know, every virtual pet needs a vacation, their lives are pretty difficult and they need to get away from the daily grind. So everything was sold, except his two very expensive motorcycles. So when Parley got home from vacation he quickly declined in health because he no longer had a bed to sleep in, food to eat, clothing to wear, but dang it, he had a great vacation! So Tate went to bed in despair because his Webkinz was about to die.
Being the good mother I am, I played the children's games online for a little over an hour to get enough cash to buy some medicine, food, a trip to the doctor and a bed. Seriously, how many Cash Cow games do you have to play to earn enough money? The answer is about an hours worth! So Parley is now healthy and we hope that Tate has learned an important lesson about finances. But I doubt it, since his mother bailed him out and he suffered no major consequences.
Because it is raining today they will each have some time to play with their Webkinz, but they will have to hurry, there are a few games I need to play....