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crawl walk run
By heather | February 26, 2009
An hour ago, I was half asleep thinking I really should get up and get ready for bed.
Did you hear that self? Just get ready for bed, NOT take a quick peek at email on the way to the bathroom and wind up with your eyes crossed an hour later after an exhausting and tense search for a double jogging stroller that costs less than our monthly mortgage.
I have no idea why these things are so dang expensive, but holy cripes who spends $700 on a stroller?
It should be noted that right now I’m saying $700, but a few hours ago I was saying, “Holy cripes! Who spends $400 on a stroller?”
This has been kind of like wedding dress shopping for me. Once you get over the initial sticker shock, you realize that anything LESS than EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT just will not do, causing your price tolerance to creep up and up. Even though yesterday I had no idea what I wanted, just a vague notion that a double jogging stroller would solve all my problems.
So as you shop around and read reviews, while looking at all the pretty colors your brain starts to think, “Well, maybe $400 isn’t that bad, after all how long will we use this? Years probably! Right? Right! Oooh but look, for just $449 it comes in black and silver! It will totally be important to have a color that I love if I’m going to spend that much anyway.”
Then comes the question of features. Swivel wheel? Locked wheel? Hand brake? Reclining seat? Snack cup? Sun shade?
I think a reality check may be in order. My current single jogger was bought off eBay for $50 before Alex was even born. The woman I bought it from was pregnant with twins and was seriously the LARGEST PREGNANT PERSON I HAD EVER SEEN. Looking at her scared the bejeezus out of me, and I was kind of afraid to ask her to demonstrate the features for fear that her water might just break all over the stroller and my shoe. So we loaded it into the car without collapsing it because we couldn’t figure out how and didn’t want to look like idiots sitting in her driveway messing with it. (The irony is not lost on me, I promise.)
Knowing what I know now, that stroller is kind of a piece of shit, albeit one that only cost $50. I finally figured out how to collapse it about a year later, and now while researching double joggers I’m finding that the wheels on most of these pop off so you can actually put the freaking thing in the back of your car and still manage to close the tailgate. Brilliant!
Ahem.
I cannot stress how floored I am at the fact that the wheels probably pop off my other stroller but I wouldn’t have the faintest idea of how to make that happen.
As I read reviews of these things, it seems that only the strollers that cost more than $400 have 4 or 5 stars across the board. I am convinced that this is because if you spend that much damn money on a jogging stroller, you will swear up, down, and under duress that it is the best purchase you ever made no matter what, because to do otherwise is to admit you rolled up a few hundred dollar bills and smoked them.
If the wheels fall off while you’re jogging, that is a FEATURE.
If you have to spend an additional hundred bucks to get a stupid cupholder for your handle bar, you will convince yourself that is because the manufacturer poured money into fine, fine ENGINEERING and didn’t waste time or brain cells on trivialities.
And of course you need a 5-year warranty because surely your 7-year-old will still want to ride in a stroller next to your 5-year-old and if something breaks when he slams his teenage sized foot against the footrest, well by golly YOU ARE COVERED.
Intellectually, I understand this and would really like to stop the flow of insanity that is currently coursing through my brain.
Emotionally, I heart the bad ass black-on-black Baby Jogger City Elite for a perfectly reasonable $529. I have no shame.
Topics: baby stuff, parenting | 3 Comments »
Tags: and no, I don't even really like jogging
February 27th, 2009 at 11:14 am
but the list price is $649!!! You’re TOTALLY saving money!!! And really, isn’t your health and well being worth it?
March 2nd, 2009 at 12:06 am
Thanks Jill….I’ll make sure to call your husband this week to encourage him to save his mountain of comics because really, isn’t the pleasure that he derives from them worth it??
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:57 pm
One question: Do you jog?
Vicki’s last blog post..My new PA