The dumbest thing I heard today

This morning, after I dropped my kids off at their mom's place of employment, I was listening to a local radio station. The morning show was doing a weekly feature called "Dilemma of the Week", or something like that, which is opened up to callers to voice their opinion on what should be done.

Here's the situation they gave: A family in Manchester, NH has a two year old gerbil named Johnny with two broken rear legs, apparently by one of the kids stepping on the thing or some other act which no one was willing to 'fess up to. A vet told the family that he could set the bones for $700. The father said no way while the mother (and likely the kids, too) says they should do it. So this is the question, should they or should they not pay?

Believe it or not, some callers actually thought it would be a good idea to spend the money on Johnny. Most of the callers I heard thought old Johnny should be laid to rest. And that was the majority vote of the callers - that Johnny should be left to die.

One woman called in with this semi-related story - that she and her husband had owned a bird that got sick and they were told by a vet that they could purchase $600 worth of antibiotics to give to the bird to help it get better. The couple debated the issue, and the wife who wanted to spend the money on the bird, won the argument. So the poor husband relented and stayed up all night to feed the antibiotics to the bird, which ended up dying the next day anyway.

Of course, I agree with the father in the gerbil story. I can think of a gazillion more productive ways to spend $700 than on vet bills for a gerbil, which has a short life span and would die anyway. Now if this were a dog or cat that we were talking about then maybe, MAYBE, I'd spend $700 at the vet for it, depending on the age of the animal and projected lifespan.

Do you know how many gerbils $700 can buy??