I lost my wedding band about a month ago. I had accidentally worn it to work and had to scrub in for an emergency surgery. You can't scrub in wearing a ring because that 5 minute-long harsh chemical hand scrubbing and two layers of surgical gloves are still no match for wedding-band germs that are way more resilient than hand germs, and may result in spontaneous combustion of you're patient or something. So I had to remove the band in a hurry. I placed it in the shirt pocket of my scrubs where I can protect the defenselessly anesthetized patient from the vicious gold-dwelling microbes... aaaaand, I forgot to take it out at the end of the day.
Who knows where the ring ended up after going to hospital laundry. My biggest fear is that those germs are in the drains somewhere raising up a subterranean super army of unstoppable bacterial soldiers of death.
I had to get a new ring. No more expensive gold rings for me. No way Jose! I'm going for titanium rings now. Why? Well 1. because they are cheaper, 2. the store clerk said that they are virtually indestructible, and 3. they were on sale (I think I got it like 99.9% off. I'm not entirely positive, but the clerk had to get out a calculator to figure out the thirteen different discounts I was getting for stuff like wearing a blue shirt, sneezing twice while trying rings on, and having already set up a super special titanium account - unbeknownst to me - with the department store and whatnot.
After talking about all the different options like Tungsten (which is so durable that someday we will make time machines out of it), gold (which was like 800 times more expensive than the other two options) and titanium (which is tough, scratch resistant and REALLY on sale). I went with the obvious choice.
As I'm checking out, she offers to sell me some "peace of mind".
"Say what?" I didn't realize that I was in such a Holy place capable of delivering on such lofty promises.
"Insurance."
"Aw. Okay. Why?" I was pretty sure already that I wasn't going to buy the insurance for my ring, but I wanted to give her a chance.
"In case something happens to it." She smiled at me with a slight hint of sorrow for the poor uneducated young man making his first big boy purchase ever.
"In case I lose it again?" I asked.
"No it won't cover that," She shot back abruptly. "In case it breaks or scuffs."
"I thought this titanium stuff was super durable."
"Well, you never know. Just in case."
See what she did there? First, she sells me on the durability and inexpensiveness of the ring, so that I don't have to freak out if I lose it and I can feel confident that it will stand up to the rigors of Elizabeth's jewelry box (which is where it will live during the week when I'm working). Then, in order to tempt me to spend more money, she creates a sort of uneasiness about it actually lasting until I once again do something stupid like drop it into an alligator infested swamp, which would never happen because swamps are hot and stinky and alligators terrify me.
This is the subtle ploy of consumerism. This is how marketing works. The goal is to entice the customer with a promise of satisfaction, but never let the satisfaction last for long enough that the customer doesn't come back and spend more money. Check it out for yourself sometime, go experiment by fake car shopping (be very careful that you don't actually get talked into buying the car). You've probably, like me and everyone else, been suckered into making regretful purchases in the past.
But realizing the subtle messages, the psychological scams being played on you, the empty promises, the calming joyful music, bright lights, engaging and labyrinth-like layout; it's all there to trap you. When you start looking for it, it's like Neo realizing that the Matrix is a lie, a false experience designed to satisfy just enough, but it isn't real. That my friends is consumerism.
Sweet dreams.
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