This may be over-analyzing whether the $64.00 bottle of perfume was an extravagance or not.........but isn't this one of the many reasons why we love our little group: obsessing on things others don't even notice??
I did some searching and found that, when adjusting for inflation, $64 in 1968 is the equivalent of $391.89 in today's dollars. Yes, about $400 today is a lot for perfume.....but it's not unheard of. (The most expensive perfume in the world is $2,150 PER OUNCE <Clive Christian's Imperial Majesty>.) The bottle that Opie broke contained 4 OUNCES. That comes out to about $100 per ounce in 2009 dollars. But, in today's dollars, Chanel #5 (something that would have been known and popular in 1968) costs $123 dollars per ounce....comparable to the 100 dollar per ounce for the perfume Andy considered buying. So, if you find that Andy buying Helen a perfume less expensive than Chanel #5 to be extravagant, I guess it would be. It's all subjective depending on your definition of "extravagant". I, on the other hand, think Helen was well worth it.....and that several women in Mayberry would have had perfume the equivalent of Chanel #5. And why didn't Opie notice that when he broke the bottle of perfume on the floor the "perfume" had no fancy female smell to it? _______________________________________________ WBMUTBB mailing list [email protected] http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/
