It’s not Show Me The Money but Where’s The Money!

As a parent of 3 teenagers, an article on dailytelegraph.com.au really resonated with me this week and I’m sure it will for you too.

Angela Mollard is a columnist, commentator and author who we interviewed on radio this week [link to podcast]. She is also the parent of a child needing braces… read on…

 “I’m sitting at the Orthodontist with my 16 year old. She has started wearing invisible aligners to help correct a small overbite. I can’t see there’s any aesthetic issue but apparently leaving it uncorrected will cause dental problems down the track.

“We’ve paid $8265 for 48 sets of flimsy plastic which will supposedly correct the teeth — and give her a perfect smile (a year earlier we paid $7900 for our younger child to be fitted with conventional braces).

“So far, so annoying, but I should be able to pay it off if I work until I’m 108.

The trouble is the 2nd and 4th pair of aligners for child No.1 didn’t quite fit. As she explained to the orthodontist, the plastic was rubbing on the gum above her left front tooth and causing pain and irritation.

The solution according to the orthodontist? “Take a nail file and grind the plastic down until it fits.” A nail file? What, so I should pay for an emery board to correct an eight grand set of aligners that were made in America using state-of-the-art computer modelling and digital simulation? It’s like going to a restaurant and being told to cook the food yourself.

Now I’m not a vengeful person but in that moment I had a single thought: I hope some teenager figures out a way to make dental aligners using recycled milk bottles and a 3D printer and sends the whole sodding orthodontic industry out of business.

I’ve always felt a bit sorry for those rendered redundant by digital disruption: all those darkroom technicians at Kodak; taxi drivers done over by Uber; real estate agents who may soon have to downgrade their Audis.

But recently I’m just tired of being ripped off. Everything seems to cost stupid amounts of money for what it actually is.

School photographs — $50 per child. Hemming and taking in a school dress- $85. Flathead fillets — $49 a kilo. Eyelash tint — $32. Removal of tiny pre-cancerous spot under local anaesthetic — $650.

All my mates are saying the same. One barely received change from $20,000 for the funeral costs for her mother. Another paid $300 for a scientific calculator for a child in Year 9 and a friend in a pricey suburb was quoted $450 to have her car washed inside and out — no detailing. Worse, if you want to park for more than 15 minutes at an airport you may have to sell a kidney. Add a sandwich and you’ll have to sell both.

I’m glad every industry — including my own — is having to rethink its relevance in the digital era. For too long greedy monopolies have told us we simply have to suck up their exorbitant prices because that’s what it costs.

Except it doesn’t, does it? Uber has proven you don’t have to stump up $50 to travel 6km and Airbnb has offered an alternative to the $500-a-night beach house that promises a view but only delivers if you stand on the roof and crane your neck in a 270 degree angle to the left.

Likewise YouTube and Spotify. Gone are the days when talented young musicians had to sign on for years and sell their soul to jaded A & R executives just to get their song released and played on the radio. Now they can record in their bedroom and upload in an instant.

So what else might benefit from a little digital disruption? Death, for a start. We don’t need cremations live-streamed on Facebook but few of us want to pay our life savings to a bloke with dandruff and a dodgy suit. Recycled coffins, home funerals, personalised playlists, friendliness, humour — those should be the characteristics of the modern funeral.”

In America one bloke has started Go As You Please Funerals which offers the option of being buried standing up. Meanwhile Caitlin Doughty’s “alternative funeral service” sells a recycled paper casket embedded with flowers for $120 and has a FAQ page on the website which includes the vexing question: “What is the best way to write into my will that my children will receive no inheritance unless they have my dead body taxidermied and propped up in the corner of the living room?”

What else? Haircuts — what a rort. As soon as someone develops a laser that can cut and colour we can all save hundreds of dollars and precious hours of our lives. And glasses. Specsavers has proven it’s possible to enable people to see clearly without having to remortgage their homes.

Time others followed suit. Ditto so many school-related costs. Can someone please set up a website for recycling of uniforms and textbooks? And what about school camps? We need an Airbnb- style agency that undercuts the current providers charging $400 for two nights in a tent, a spot of kayaking and a bowl of bulk-cooked spag bol.”

angelamollard@gmail.com