If you've read any money or household tip newsletters or websites recently, chances are youv'e read something about bartering. From what I've read, it's the hip thing to do these days. Bartering is just a fancier name for trading, or swapping as we called it in school. In case you're wondering, barter comes from the French word barater, which means "to trade." The newsletters and articles make it sound like bartering is some new concept. But bartering has been used since before money was invented. There was no such thing as money, and people had to get their food, clothing and other necessities by trading things for them. If you ask me, bartering began thousands of years ago when kids started taking their lunches. And it's stilli n practice today.
Lunchroom trading is still the most popular form of bartering among kids today. Desserts are the number one item traded. Back in the day at Greenwood Elementary, trading reached a near-frenzy on days that we had wheat fudge (aka no-bake cookies). We would even trade our entree for another piece of wheat fudge. We did have one trading oddity - in third grade, there was a boy in my class that loved the raw turnip slice that was served whenever we had soy burgers. He loved them so much that he was willing to trade his french fries or his dessert for someone's turnip slice.
Video game trading is another popular form of bartering with today's kids. The premise is good - kids trading video games that they've played a bizillion times and have memorized all of the levels and are tired of playing. But the downside is that most of the times the kids have no concept of value when it comes to their video games; all they know is their parents forked over the money for them. They have no clue what the video games cost. Case in point: a dear friend's son traded a video game for a ballcap. The cap probably cost $5 at a discount store; the video game cost the parents $50. Ouch. The parents will have to just suck it up, because as we all know, black black, no trade back.
1 comment:
Puddin, if my brain cells are still in working order, I seem to remember how you were always trying to trade me out of my cream-colored windbreaker jacket in middle school. And if you remember, I never traded you the jacket. I did, however, let you borrow it. You thought the pockets on the inside of the jacket were cool. LOL
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