People with too much money

This weekend I spent about 20 hours as a stagehand at a large suburban dance studio's spring recital. This consisted of 500 priveledged children dressed in the scary outfits they wore twice and their parents with their Luis Vuitton handbags and $2,000+ cameras. I overheard one mom saying she paid $3,000 in costumes. Seriously? I spent last week mulling over a pair of $12 shoes from Target I decided to "think about" before purchasing and she's dropping three grand on costumes? This doesn't even factor in the expenses for classes, admission to the recital or purchasing the video...

Now, don't get me wrong, I have had my fair share of being spoiled with my massive amounts of toys and various activities that I started as a kid (and immediately stopped once I realized how much work it was). The difference is I started dancing at age 17 when I paid for most of my classes/costumes and paid for all of my dance expenses by the following year

I was talking to a friend about this yesterday and was asked if this ever pays off. The sad thing is it doesn't . If you can somehow factor in "teamwork" or the whole "athlete thing," but really, what does the dancing life lead to? ... eating disorders ... too much partying ... drugs... rehab... Not so much with the payoff. Truth is, the cream of the crop who have incredible luck are taken all the way to the top where they get to go on tour with big pop stars as backup dancers and do music videos. Sometimes, you can even make a movie as "break dancer #5."

Why do I do it? Mostly because it's fun and is exercise that makes me use my brain. I do, however, limit myself to less than $100/month of classes.