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You get tagged coming and going
(by Barbara Christian - June 29, 2011)
WINDOW ON MAIN STREET, BY BARBARA CHRISTIAN
You get tagged coming and going
The keys I carry every day weigh in at about a pound. That seems a lot. But it's not really the house, car and office keys that are weighing me down. It's all those plastic store tags you need to get special pricing at the pump, grocery, pharmacy and growing number of retailers.
I wish these places would just give their best price on everything without all the folderol that is involved in today's big retail marketing schemes. Forgive the following aggressive thought, but I'd like to wring the neck of the genius who came up with the plastic tag idea.
Where is it written that the pressure for savings is on the customer, not on the business? Those annoying plastic tags are just another good reason to shop locally and at non-franchise, home-owned, tag-free stores.
Problem is there's not been a home-owned drugstore around here since Speice's and Nalls years ago, and no one can remember ever shopping in a home-owned grocery store either. It might have been Fisher's.
And so we are saddled with the plastic tags, which we are required to haul out and over the counter to the sales clerk every time we make a purchase. The theory is, eventually, these tag-enhanced purchases add up to savings on whatever the computer and the marketers want you to buy next. It's usually something you don't want or a competing brand of something you buy regularly and are not about to change to get the extra 10 cents in savings.
It used to be all we had to worry about was remembering the grocery coupons. Life is already too complicated without adding a key ring loaded with plastic tags.
Ditto that for those punch cards you get in some stores when you buy a certain number of items like underwear and stockings. Accumulate enough holes in that card and get a free pair of socks. Soon we will need to carry a file box around with us, along with the coupons and plastic tags, every time we leave the house. Forget about finding a place in your wallet or purse for these punch cards, because soon your wallet or purse will weigh as much as your key chain.
Double ditto the annoyance that is the credit card "rewards" program. You'd have to buy a beach house in Florida, a couple of boats and five cars, all on your Visa or Mastercard, to get any meaningful savings. And they likely don't add up to what you paid to use the credit card in the first place. Few "rewards" come in the form of cash, which is what we'd all want.
Even the charitable resale shops are getting into act of offering discounts, if only you remember to bring that punch card they gave you last time you were in. Buy 20 things and get the 21st at some percentage off.
And talk about charitable giving, this morning I read where a major shoe company is giving free medical care for those in need for every pair purchased. Question: Why can't the company give that medical care out of the goodness of its heart without laying a guilt trip on customers? I suspect profit is the real motivation here.
My friend Larry (not his real name) refuses to sign up or accept any of these plastic tags and punch cards. He thinks it's a government plot. A national identity tracking devise. To what end, he does not know. I used to think Larry was paranoid, but now I suspect he is onto something. While "they" may not be out to get me, they have certainly gotten on my last nerve.
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