My first reaction, on seeing the poster for Moo Moose, was surprise. I walked by after glancing at it, and only some 15 feet later did the actual amount of the reward register. I turned around and walked back, so I could look at the sign again.

My initial thought was - these people are crazy! $1,000? In my mind, I said to myself "There's no way I'd..." and then I stopped. $1,000 seemed like more money that I would be willing to give, were I to lose my cat. And as I stood there thinking how crazy these people were to offer up that much money, I asked myself... "well, how much money would you offer up, if it was your cat that was lost?"

Cutting their reward in half, I wondered about $500. And that still seemed a bit crazy to me.

And then, as I began to slowly move down in price... I had to stop myself. I realized I was circling and haggling internally, trying to come up with some amount that I would be willing to part with, in exchange for my cat's life. And I found this enormously disturbing.

I want to argue that I would pay any amount for the safety of my cat. While I don't count myself in the camp of "those crazy cat people" who dress their pets up in hats and booties, I love my cat. She's been with me for years and years, and I can't imagine what it would be like to not have her around anymore.

But as much as I want to say I'd do anything... my reaction to that "Lost" poster says otherwise. It's disturbing to know that somewhere in the back of my brain, whether or not I want to admit it.... there's some total amount, some specific sum of money that I've calculated as equal in worth to my cat's life.

I want to say now that $500 isn't too much. But I don't know if that's me trying to revise my initial reaction, or if it's guilt or what. Regardless what that amount is, it saddens me to learn this about myself - that there's some line beyond which I will say "No, that's not worth it." I'm honestly quite disturbed by this realization, that I've got in me some amount of money that's equal in my mind, to the life of my cat.

On the plus side, the people who put up this "Lost" poster are offering an extraordinary amount of money, and they clearly place a high value on getting their cat back.

You know what really gets me the most about all this? On looking at this poster again, it's the text, the typography of it. Looking at it now, I realize that the first thing they put at the top was the word "Lost," signifying that that's the thing of most importance to them. Of secondary note is the large offer of the $1,000 reward.

From a marketing standpoint, from a design standpoint... the thing to highlight is the money. The thing you would want to draw attention to is the extraordinary reward of $1,000. But because these people love their cat, the first thing of importance to them, the thing that they want to communicate the most, is the word "Lost." Looking at this poster and their unconscious choice of emphasis, you can infer the degree to which this loss has affected them.

Fucking breaks your heart, doesn't it?