I spent $25 on a show bag. Yep that’s right, I have now become one of those people that have justified the price of a show bag and so that is it, we can never go back. The prices will keep going up and up and I will not be able to complain. I am now part of the problem.
In my defence I would like to say it was for my son. It was a Thomas the Tank bag and the stuff in it was so great. I mean a little Thomas Umbrella? How could I NOT buy it? Nonetheless I did feel a sense of doing something wrong, something quite naughty once I decided to go ahead and do it!
I looked at the other bags and thought I don’t really want to get him a bag full of chocolate (I did of course buy myself a bag full of chocolate!) I told myself that the stuff in the Thomas bag was so cool and he would love it and isn’t that what a day at the show is all about? So I very shakily got my purse out and handed over the money, $31 in total for two (count em…) show bags.
My inner voice inside me was trying to get my attention whilst I was doing this to tell me how crazy it was to even think about spending that much money on a show bag. Where were my wits? How can it be justified?
At the risk of sounding very old and annoying I want to say I remember what show bags used to cost. When I was a kid $5 was expensive for a show bag. If a parent bought you a $5 bag then you were thrilled and got to boast about it. Chances are you only got just that one bag as opposed to the other kids who got a whole heap of $2 bags. Of course those kids actually had more money spent on them overall but that was not the point. The $5 bags were prestigious, a symbol of decadence, something to salivate over and dream about.
I remember too when the $2 bags rose in price by 50 cents and how horrifying it was. My husband, bless him, remembers when show bags were actually still good old sample bags and free because they actually contained samples in them.
There were no licensed bags in my day though I do seem to recall them limping in sometime in my teens. No mostly they contained chips or chocolates and pathetic little toys. No My little Pony or Thomas or Sesame Street or anything that a small child might go nuts about. I seem to recall the odd non-food bag such as the Magic Bag which I really wanted one year but then decided against when upon closer viewing I discovered it was full of crap. Very clever of me I think to see through the marketing hype back then. Where has that person gone?
So now we have $25 bags and it would seem there is no shortage of people buying them for their kids. I got sucked in and I bet there are even some kids that get more than one of them. Imagine $50 on show bags? Even $6 is steep really for a bag full of chocolate that probably costs less than that to buy at the supermarket. I imagine there are some people who refuse to buy them based on the crazy prices. I wish I was one of them. I remember when my husband first expressed the thought to me; ‘Why not just go to the shop and buy some freddo’s?’ Was he kidding? Did he not see the point of THE SHOW BAG??
I am just thinking what I could do with $25 that does not involve buying one licenced bag and giving more proceeds to a company that must make a packet each year. That is one very long list and would probably be very depressing if I wrote it down, so I won’t. I tell you what I will say, come up with a great concept for a kids TV show and have someone come on board to market the images of the cute characters on toys, toothbrushes, umbrella’s, socks, cartons of milk, ant farms etc and you will have it made.
So I am still calming down a little bit. One minute I tell myself that it is all fine. It is done now and can’t be undone and doesn’t that little backpack look just sooooo cute? At others I wonder what to make of myself. What have I become? Someone who has succumbed to hype about what is required for a good day out, someone lacking common sense and decency?
Yes folks, that is what I have become. I spent $25 on a show bag for my son and this is my confession. Now do with me what you will.
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