On Friday evening, right before Shabbat, our old stroller died. It was a loyal Peg Perego (bought on ebay) that weighed a ton, and lasted through two children before the handle gave way, and off it went to the great dumpster in the sky.With our single car and the fact that I'm always driving it to work, Rena knew that if we didn't buy a new stroller right away, she might not get one for weeks. Since we had spent Shabbat in Yerushalayim at the YU Israel Kollel (it was a wonderful Shabbaton), off we went to Talpiyot in search of the perfect stroller. The stroller needed to fulfill two conditions: (1) It fit into the back of our car and (b) it was reasonably priced.
As I walked into the store, before me lay a veritable parking lot of strollers, running the gamut from baby joggers to mini-tanks to umbrella strollers. It didn't take us long to narrow down our search and we found a nice model for about 350 shekel, but while the guy was in back getting our stroller, I took the opportunity to "browse" and suffered a serious case of sticker shock. I cannot for the life of me understand why in the world a stroller would be worth 4 or five thousand (yes, thousand) shekel. Actually, I know why someone would ask for that kind of money - they think that they can sucker a future parent out of any sum of money. And they're right. But what about the parents? People who normally drive "Chevys" suddenly find themselves in the market for the Rolls Royce of strollers. And they don't come with GPS! Sure, it might offer a smoother ride. It might have more padding (both of which your baby will never notice.) But is it 3,500 shekels more padding?
Some things I'll never understand.
What's incredible isn't that the $1500 stroller exists, or even that there are several competitors in the $1000-and-up stroller category. There are exceedingly wealthy people who want "the best" of everything (why not?) and there are regular wealthy people who put off having children until they establish their careers, and now that they're having their one child they go a little nuts. What's incredible is that middle class parents buy these products, too.
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