The shoes with purple bow.....an old story revisited

A couple of weeks ago the following conversation took place between me and my friend S.

S: Do you know that S1 bought N a flip flop for 150 pounds?
Me: I think 150 pounds is too much to spend on a flip flop for a five years old girl.
S: Yes I agree with you, but it seems S1 is spoiling her girl.

This short conversation brought to my mind an old story that I'll never forget as long as I live. Years ago when I was thirteen years old, it was Christmas time and I went shopping with my mum to buy a pair of shoes. We kept moving from one shop to another but nothing attarcted me. Then we stood infront one of the windows where I found my dream shoes, it was an elegant black shoes with purple bow and I thought it would perfectly match the black skirt with purple flowers I was going to wear on Christmas. My mother looked at the price label and told me it was not worth its price and that she would not spend this amount of money on a pair of shoes, she even did not let me go inside the shop and try them on. I was totally convinced that the shoes with purple bow was all I wanted for Christmas. All the way home I kept arguing with my mum asking her to buy these shoes for me and told her I'll not buy any shoes till they wear out. My mum was never convinced so I told her that I would tell daddy the whole story when we got home and see what he would say. Daddy's opinion was the same as mum's, he told me they were not going to buy these shoes for me beacuse they think these shoes were not worth the labeled price. I finally gave up and bought another shoes that I did not like but matched my Christmas outfits.

After the Christmas vacation was over, I went back to school where I found one of my class-mates wearing the expensive black shoes with purple bow. I felt terrible that day, I thought that it was totally unfair of my mum to refuse to buy me the shoes I liked while this girl's mother bought her this expensive pair of shoes and allowed her to wear it to school. I guess I need to mention some information about this girl H. H was the daughter of a man who owned one of those companies that claimed to invest people's money and give them a high interest rate (tawzeef amwal). H's father turned out to be a smuggler and died in prison shortly after he was sentenced. The money was previously transferred to forigen banks and was never returned to the poor people.

I went home back from school and told my mum about H wearing my dream shoes to school and telling her I thought it was unfair of her to refuse buying these shoes for me. She did not get mad at me or anything, istead she told me that there was a big difference between me and H; H's father made his fortune by stealing money from poor people's pockets while my dad worked hard to earn his money and that it was our duty not to waste this money on anything unless we are sure it was worth what we paid.

I guess this was one of my earliest how-to-wisely-spend-your-money lessons. I owe my parents a lot for such precious lessons. They taught me not to buy anything just because I liked it, they also taught how to compare prices and how to make the best bargains. They simply taught me the value of money earned by hard work. I owe them a lot for choosing not to spoil me and preferring to be thought of as the "unfair guys who denied me my dream shoes" instead.