I am ready for my third box of Prada Lip Balm. Each box contains 30 individually wrapped tubes [shown left at life-size] and sells for $65 or so. That works out to just over $2 per tube, which, if you really think about it, is only slightly more than what an absentminded guy might spend on lip balm anyway: you leave a chapstik in your jeans and run them through the wash, you can't find one when you need it so you buy another one at the store; before you know it, you've got five barely used Chapstiks. Somewhere.
Why do I mention this? Because it makes the quarter-sized plastic tub of Vaseline that comes with the Bugaboo Maintenance Kit only the second most irrational lubricant purchase in the world.
The Bugaboo bag also contains: 2-Taiwanese polyester washcloths, a screwdriver-sized Bugaboo air pump, and a 60ml bottle of Bugaboo silicone spray. Since March 2004, the kit and instructional CD-ROM have been included with new Bugaboo purchases
Everything in the kit works well; the instructions are clear, if sparse, and the video is well done. [Even though the Daddy Types instructions for opening and closing a Bugaboo involve much less stooping. I'll come back to the video in a later post.]
It's not a question of how much it'd cost to buy all these components separately; it's how many you'd actually need to buy at all. Even though the kit's retail price, around $16, may be pretty close to the bundled price of all this stuff, you may feel like you're getting screwed. But fortunately, there are two lubricants in the bag.
Bugaboo buyers from before March 2004 can buy a Maintenance Kit at Joggingstroller.com or, um, Breastfeeding Express [pun? no pun? No idea, but shipping's $5.50.]
Well Greg I've finally talked myself out of the bugaboo. I will always envy those who have it and probably will dream of it in the orange color, of course. But I just can't do it. Am going for a Graco Metro Lite. God help me.
But there's a tiny tub of Vaseline included!!
Seriously, no one should ever sweat too hard over a stroller.
As for the Metro Lite or a similar-priced stroller, I'd say look long and hard at the Graco Quattro before deciding for sure. The Quattro is a very good-looking, forward-thinking stroller that doesn't cost any more than the clunkier Metro. And if you take off even a couple of the cumbersome doo-dads it comes with, the Quattro can look downright beautiful, in fact. Check it out.
I also reccomend the Quattro highly. When I worked in the baby store years ago, we sold MetroLites to people and they are not the best strollers by far!
If you don't like Bugaboo, which I also highly recommend, then Graco Quattro with a snugride carseat (the most easy-to-use carseat ever made). If you are going upscale, then get the Quattro in Central Park. If you are going to Babies R US, get the Windsor print.