Carol & Mike are rather poor

Granted, they're still paying for college for Cindy and Bobby, but still, two professional adults who have no house payments to worry about shouldn't have to save for years to be able to go to Greece or Japan. I know people who vacation in Europe every year. How much could it cost to do that or to fly the kids back? I figure maybe $10,000 and certainly no more than $15,000 back in the 80s.

And college wasn't that expensive back then, either. Definitely not the ludicrous tuition of today where parents are basically paying to send their kids to luxurious dormitory "resorts" the likes of which none of us could even dream of back then (unless you were watching Rodney Dangerfield's Back to School). My school charged about $6000 per year at the time and is now well over $40,000. Not to mention they didn't have to pay Alice's salary for at least the last few years after she left. Surely she was paid more than $10,000 a year.