The animal in question
When my son's cat Hektor went missing and was gone more than 8 days I had given up hope of finding him. My wife had found data that indicated that one in three cats gone more than a week eventually are found. Even so the weather had been so bad, so wet, and cold that survival seemed slim.
So when I went out to my truck two days ago to go to the grocery store and I heard a yowell
that was most definitely Hektor my adrenaline spewed out. Actually the cry was very faint, hearing it was sort of like hearing your name called out in a noisy crowd. So where the heck did it come from?
There are two homes that are empty to the west of my house. One house is in Repo and the other Limbo. So risking trespassing charges (for the third time since I had looked here before), I began searching the outbuildings around the house and then tapping on the windows of the houses themselves and calling Hektor's name. Eventually I tapped on a door window and heard his meow in side. Sure enough I could see him trapped inside the house.
OK, here's my cat, that is being mourned by wife and child (it doesn't matter that the child is 28) and he is alive in a locked house and there is no way I'm going to leave him there. There is also no way that I know of to get him out by calling someone. The house is simply closed up and in limbo, no foreclosure, no realtor, no contact info at all. So How do I get him out? All the doors are locked, all windows are closed and locked. There is a cat size hole where the air conditioner pipes went in.
I am not cat sized.
Finally I found a door that could be jimmied open without damaging it. I went in obtained the cat and came out. All the while I expected the cops to show up and arrest me, but I was OK with that. This damn cat was worth the hassle and the cost. Not to me, maybe, but certainly to my family, OK to me too.
How much are we willing to pay for something important ? How much pain, discomfort, hassle, are we willing to endure?
The same night I read about the five year old kid, Kyler VanKnocker and the insurance company HealthAmerica that wouldn't kick in another $110,000 to possibly give the kid a chance at life.
His family had already bankrupted themselves to save him. What else could they do? What price was this kids life worth? Indeed what price was anyone's life worth? An age old question?
I'm going to ponder on this. I'll get back to you on it.
3 comments:
Never use "worth" without a "to whom." Worth is not 186,282 miles per second. Worth is right and left.
Yeah, but everthing does seem to have a price. Now the "to whom", right and left, may create brackets, but there be a price.
The concept of priceless is only viable if you don't have enough money to buy it anyway.
The concept of priceless is only viable if you don't have enough money to buy it anyway.
I like this.
Price is, classically, created at the margin between buying and not buying
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