You may or may not be familiar with Zhu Zhu Pets, aka Go Go Pets in other parts of the world. They're cute little robotic hamsters, which my son (turning 7 in 2 weeks) will be giving to his girlfriend at her birthday next week (yes, he's "dating" a slightly older woman).

I'd managed to avoid the craze in our home. "You have a real pet rat. You don't need a toy hamster pet." Worked wonderfully.

Until Kung Zhu. Recently introduced, these are more the "boy" version. (Yes, I'm aware I'm using way too many quotation marks.) These same sweet little hamsters are now geared more toward boys (but notice I used "toward," not "towards," and placed the comma correctly inside the quotation marks, and more annoying quotes.) Problem: the real rat isn't going to "fight" another rat, and it wouldn't be cute if it did, and we only have the one anyway.

Anyway, Kung Zhu mixes martial arts fighting with cute hamster robots. He really wanted one, so I put it on his birthday list. His grandparents sent money for a Wii game, and I had some left over, so I thought, okay, why not? Ordered two of the little cuties, what's the harm?

The harm came tonight when I was talking to him about why he wanted them. Mostly to get a cheap, vicarious thrill about how much he wanted them and how cool I was to buy them.

Crap!! The reason he wants them is because of the battle arena and armor. Sold separately. OF COURSE! So rather than waste $20 or so on pets that will disappoint, I went online to buy armor. JUST armor. Not too bad, only $20. Still in budget, hadn't finished my shopping anyway.

Then I remembered the arena. $30. Then I saw the cool "training center" and had to have that. All told, even joining Amazon Prime and some free shipping, just spent $95. ON TOP OF THE $20 I ALREADY SPENT!

So he'd better by God love these things. About $70 of that was out-of-pocket, above what the parents sent. And about $50 more than I'd meant to spend on his birthday.

My only redeeming point is that I love him so much, and I don't want him to have the bitter memory, like I do, that my grandparents were willing to buy me the Barbie Dream House but my parents absolutely vetoed it, for reasons still unknown. (Note to self, ask parents why. Was it being spoiled? God-awful-tacky? Too big for my room?)

I am not one of those parents who lavish everything material on my chid. He understands the value of a dollar. ("The ice cream man sells you one popsicle for $4, but you can buy a whole box of them for $2 at the grocery store.")

So why, and how, did I get sucked into this commercial crap for some $115 that will yield a total of 2 hours of play (please, God, prove me wrong!)?

The $50 (Toy Story 3) and $40 (Super Mario Galaxy 2) Wii games on his wish list that will get about 100 hours of play, without adding much to the toy clutter, are looking better and better ...