The Inflation Busting, Credit Crunch Supermarket Ploy
Posted: Tuesday, August 05, 2008
by Ieuan Dolby
The Mariners Articles
I feel like laughing hysterically when I pass yet another notice in Lidl's that reads "Credit Crunch Prices"! When supermarkets start telling me that they have inflation busting sausages, credit solver peanuts and inflation destroyer meringues, I feel like slapping my thigh in hilarity!
I don't lose control though! Laughing hysterically whilst pushing my trolley around the fruit and veg counters in Tesco's might shock the dear old ladies hobbling around who have been conned into believing everything that they read! My giggling on the floor next to the cleaning fluids might have the housewives attacking me in ill-considered self-defense - Ecover toilet cleaner in the eye can hurt!
The surge of word usage by supermarkets (property shops, banks, freight companies and about every other business in the world) to attract customers is so diabolical as to have past any seriousness! My final reaction, after pondering dragging some poor store-manager out of his price-counting daze to ask him to explain, is to laugh, but then is it funny or is it all so extremely sad?
It matters not I suppose! In basis the average shopper will buy anything if it is suggested that they are gaining a bargain and as has been par for the course for decades the supermarkets are champions at selling food any which way but loose to make a massive profit for shareholders who eat non-inflation busting caviar and mostly drink way-above-credit-crunch champagne!
It is a crying shame that people are attracted by these marketing ploys; if they emptied their trolleys of rubbish before they reached the till they could beat the great depression and still have change left over to save in the bank! Discard the worcester sauce crisps, the bottles of coke, the endless rubber sweats and the sticky lollipops! Put back the endless boxes of tissue paper (there is nothing wrong with a handkerchief - sigh, a small piece of cloth that one can blow their nose in and then wash it again), the fly spray and the aerosols (if the husbands farts are that smelly stop feeding him junk), the sponge cakes (make one - yes, the oven is underneath the grill), the cigarettes (wow, does nobody ever listen), the alcohol (try water - ouch, that clear fluid that comes out of the tap) and the cheap plastic kids toys that will only be added to the pile of junk once home!
Heres another inflation busting tactic - plant some vegetables in your back garden! Least of all you'll get some fresh air that could also help to conserve energy as you will be outside rather than in - no need for the heating to be on then is there?
Anyway, I'm not going to get on my high horse all the time! If people want to blame the country and the credit crunch for being in debt then do so - who am I to care? But for those who are in debt and who will take a little bit of advice - your children don't really need to be continually connected with their friends until 3am, they don't need need to eat 75% non-nutritional garbage, a packed lunch might be a novelty these days but it has its merits and Nike trainers and no different from any others except in the name!
I've said my piece! I'm going out now to see if I can find an inflation submerged three-foot hedge trimmer simply because I might need one one day, I might just stop off for a credit-stomped haggis pizza before heading home to switch the heating on full to provide me with some warmth during these times of inflation-fueled hysteria!
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Ieuan, Once again... a great article. I am beginning to really enjoy your sense of humor. And, I have to say, your writing talent is very obvious. Ummm, with one interesting observation. Your venacular peeks the curiosity of the reader in that some of your phrases and words must be quite Scotish. Good article.
Yes, Scottish they must be but then I do throw a few grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in to keep myself busy editing them (which I never get around to doing)!I used to grumble silently about Americans destroying the English language with their 'fernickity' abuse of the Queens English but recently I have come to the opinion that in this modern day and age we should be able to write any-which-way-but-loose or in other words to write without outside encumbrance and leave it up to the reader to read it or not as the case maybe! Which I myself am no follower of as recent experience shows!So there we have it! But should I write completely in Scotts, Galic, Glaswegian, Gowrie Blair Social Club grunts or Sochtie Hall Lingo only a chosen few would understand but then they generally are too @#$@#&*ed to read anyway!
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