I recently made an economic exchange that wasn't entirely rational. I paid people at Tufts University's small-animal hospital $4,000 as a deposit on an estimated $6,000 medical bill. This was for treating a cat that, six months ago, nobody wanted. Nobody except me, and back then I wouldn't have been crushed if someone else had taken him and I had to choose a different cat.
But nobody did. The shelter charged me half price on the nominal adoption fee because the staff was so happy someone was finally taking away this lanky, brown-and-black 11-year-old named Pooh Bear.
I may have been the only taker for Pooh Bear, but there in the hospital waiting room I could see I wasn't alone in being attached to a well-worn, somewhat decrepit animal. Others, one by one, were called to the front desk where they agreed to pay hundreds or thousands for a chance at saving a sick dog or cat — or in one case, a parakeet.