I was in a charity thrift store today picking up a small table lamp, when I had, shall we say, a light bulb moment: Being that there were none at the thrift store, I realized I would have to buy a shade for the lamp elsewhere that would probably cost me three times as much as the lamp itself.

Why is that? Why are lampshades so expensive? They are made of paper or cloth and are attached by aluminum spokes. What’s the big deal there?

The cheapest shade I can find at Target for my small iron lamp is $9.99–or $4 more than I paid for the lamp. And the least expensive at Pottery Barn runs $28–more than four times the cost of the lamp!

I am at times befuddled by the price of certain items. It defies logic, for instance, that a hand towel would cost just a little less than a bath towel that is many times larger. And sometimes (see my example from Kohl’s below) hand towels cost even more than bath towels:

Even with the buy-one-get-one-half-off deal, two 16- by 28-inch hand towels would be $12, while two 30- by 54-inch bath towels of the same brand would be $10. Say what?

Printer ink is another example. The cost of a Canon all-in-one printer on Amazon currently runs at $69.99.

The ink to put in that very printer, however, costs $56.99 for a pack of color ink and one black cartridge.

If you want to add in another black–because don’t we always run out of black ink before color?—that’ll set you back another $22.

Any dummy could see it would be less expensive to throw out the printer when the ink runs dry and buy a new one. For the sake of the environment, I don’t advocate such a move, but manufacturers have consumers over a barrel by charging exorbitant prices for the materials that make the technology useful.

There are other items as well that are uber cheap to make and dispense but cost a small fortune for the sake of convenience. Movie theater popcorn and soda and wine at restaurants are some examples. Since most people don’t (shouldn’t?) bring in their own popcorn or Coke to see the latest blockbuster, it kind of makes sense that theaters would sell a bucket of popcorn costing $0.20 to make for $8.50. It’s simply good economic sense when considering the overhead.

But these other items, like printer ink, make very little sense at all. I mean, do people buy that many more bath towels than hand towels and, therefore, making the smaller items is not as cost effective for companies? I doubt it. Or do people really go without lampshades, making them a luxury item? I think not.

If anyone can tell me why some things cost so much–and if you can provide more examples–please comment below. In the meantime, I’ll be busy cutting my 1,620-square-inch bath towels into 448-square-inch hand towels.