Salutations, SUNFUN Shoppers...
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde's remark about writing, "I hate
shopping, but I love having shopped." As a male, I seem to lack
the shopping gene and just go to places where I know they will
have what I want. Target and the various -Mart stores have
always been my friends. The great majority of women I know,
however, seem to enjoy shopping well enough that they often do it
for recreation. Men do not. Most men look on shopping as a life
experience that rates somewhere between root canal and spending
three weeks in prison somewhere in the third world wearing a
dress. There is a reason that the men's department in any
department store is located within three feet of the front door.
Any further demand than that and most men give up the hunt and go
elsewhere.
This year, shopping is more than just buying stuff - at
least according to the politicians. It's doing our patriotic
duty for the American economy. We should spend - spend it all.
Buy a car, buy a boat, buy something for everyone living in
Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin! It certainly isn't hard to spend when I
look at my pay check and realize that I have a mid-seven figure
salary. What brings me down to earth pretty quickly, though, is
realizing there's a decimal point involved in that number.
Thanks this week to our SUNFUN comparison shoppers, who are
always beyond compare, especially: Nnamdi Elleh, Jerry Taff,
Helen Yee, R.J. Tully, Charles Beckman, Wallace Adams, Tomoko
Naito, Candace St. Jacques & her new car, Mark Becwar, Peter J.
Adler, Carol Becwar, Tim McChain, Jan Michalski, Anna Macareno,
Bruce Gonzo, Dale Laird, Ellen M. Peterson and Kerry Miller.
I was going to make this edition of Funnies longer, but I
have shopping to do. Ouch...
Have A Great Buy,
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"When women are depressed, they either eat or go
shopping. Men invade another country. It's a whole
different way of thinking."
- Elaine Boosler
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VIN VERY ORDINAIRE...
------------------
Wine is a very popular gift for all those folks that are
otherwise hard to shop for. That being the case, and also
because I'm really a cheapskate, I was very interested to hear
recently that Wall-Mart was going to be introducing their own
brand of wine.
Yup, the world's largest retail store is contracting with
those jug wine specialists at the E&J Gallo Winery of Modesto,
California to produce low-vintage vino in the $6-8 range. The
move horrifies wine snobs, but is clearly aimed at the beer and
chips crowd that shops at Wal-Mart.
Think folks will be likely to chuck some cheap wine in their
shopping carts? Scholars working on the project (No - Really!)
believe that there is a definite market for proletarian plonk if
it is marketed right.
As Kathy Micken, professor of marketing at Roger Williams
University in Bristol, Rhode Island said in an interview: "After
all, there is wine in a box that people are willing to buy. The
right name is important and we're actively looking into that
now." (AP)
You knew we'd have some suggestions, right? Here are some
of the names that have already been discussed for the new "House
du Wal-Marte" Wine:
- Box 'o' Grapes
- Chateau Traileure Doublewide
- Moon Pie Merlot
- Martha Stewart's Off-Camera Vintage
- Nasti Spumante
- Cabernet Son-of-a-Gun
- White Trashfindel
- Chatahoochie Chianti
- Big Red Gulp
- Arkansas Vineyards Blush
- NASCAbernet
- Chef Boyardeaux
- Peanut Noir
- Rusty Chevrolet Blanc
- Red, White & Blue Nun
- Chateau Des Moines
- I Can't Believe It's Not Vinegar!
- World Championship Riesling
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BODA-BING, BODA-BYE-BYE
-----------------------
Ever since malls became the "in" places for teenagers to
hang out, mall store owners have been searching for a way to keep
the places from being taken over by packs of free-ranging high-
schoolers.
Now one shopping center in Australia has stumbled on a
method to move along the teens without making the ambiance too
unfriendly for adult customers.
Bing Crosby.
Yup, the dead crooner's 1938 hit "My Heart is Taking
Lessons" hit a real sour note with the younger crowd, so the
Warrawong shopping center, in southern New South Wales, has been
playing it almost continuously at entrances to the mall to
discourage teenage loiterers.
"All the people from Warrawong High used to hang here after
school -- now you don't see them," said 14-year-old Matthew
Wilson.
The center said that they had also installed pink
fluorescent lights designed to highlight pimples to send kids a
more subtle message not to stick around. (Reuters)
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HIT RIGHT IN THE BISCUITS
-------------------------
Tradition is one thing the British take very seriously.
Actually, there are lots of things the British take very
seriously. Too many things. But we will stop at traditions -
one tradition in particular: the gingerbread man.
Long a staple of the English Christmas diet, the gingerbread
man is now officially out, replaced by - hang on to your
shortbread - the "gingerbread person."
The supermarket chain Safeway announced early this year that
it would be producing an equal number of gingerbread men and
gingerbread women "in response to consumer demand."
"The gingerbread men wear trousers while the gingerbread
women have longer hair and wear a skirt," a spokeswoman said.
The move was widely mocked across England, but nowhere more
than in the town of Grantham where the gingerbread man biscuit
originated in 1740.
"This is utter nonsense, a waste of time and effort," Mayor
Mike Williams told London's Daily Express. "It's political
correctness gone way beyond the pale. The gingerbread man has
always been an innocuous little fellow. It's not as if he has
all his naughty bits showing." (Reuters)
[ Politically correct? You mean longer hair
and a skirt is no longer a stereotype? ]
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"The visual impact didn't fit with our family
environment and having it around a Barbie doll, for
example, didn't feel right."
- Woolworth's spokeswoman Nicole
Lander, on the English retail
chain's refusal to sell a doll
based on in-your-face rap star
Eminem.
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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MASTER CARD...
-----------------------------------
- Get it now. Tomorrow it might be gone.
- If it's on sale, you need it.
- Never ask your mother her opinion.
- You can always take it back.
- Believe anyone who says, "It's really you".
- Know when to yell, "Charge!"
- You'll grow into it.
- So many malls, so little time.
- If you put it on your credit card, it's not really spending
money.
- Always try to spend someone else's money first.
- By the time you need it, you'll lose ten pounds.
- There's no such thing as compulsive shopping, just
enthusiastic shopping.
- Shopping is patriotic. It's good for the economy
(Especially for the credit card companies).
- If you've still got checks, there must be money in the
account.
- You can always get more credit.
- If you want it, you deserve it
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DIAGNOSIS: CONSUMERITIS...
-----------------------
So, how do you steal over $250,000, spend it all, get caught
and not go to jail?
Just prove that it was all part of your therapy.
This makes more sense than it would first seem, as a judge
in Chicago found that 47-year-old Elizabeth Reach -- employed as
a $175,000-a-year consultant -- had a "diminished mental
capacity" and should be sentenced to 5 years of probation, rather
than the 18-month prison term she might have received. Reach
plead guilty to wire fraud last year after the scheme to steal
money from her employer was uncovered. She has since reimbursed
her former employer.
The judge ruled the lenient treatment because Reach is a
compulsive shopper and used the money on shopping sprees to self-
treat her depression. (Reuters)
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A SUNFUN Shopping tip:
You can get shoes for only 85 cents at most bowling
alleys.
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MILK, EGGS & AUTOS
------------------
Hate shopping for a new car? Well, thanks to a recent court
decision in Germany, consumers there can buy a at the same place
they buy bread. A higher regional court in the south German town
of Karlsruhe ruled that the Edeka supermarket chain was allowed
to sell customers cars in a package with other goods. The suit
was brought by Italian automaker Fiat, not so much because they
objected to cars being sold one aisle over from breakfast cereal,
but because Edeka had been selling the small Fiat Punto cars in a
package with other goods. Among the $11,230 packages was a car
with a trip to Berlin or a car with various electronic items.
The judge rejected the carmaker's argument that this was not
a proper package deal, and found that the offer was not
anti-competitive because customers would still be able to get
prices of the individual articles. (Reuters)
[ An automaker bringing suit for unfair
pricing on a package deal? That has to be a
first... ]
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ON THE MEETING OF MALL AND MALE...
-------------------------------
Many women hate shopping with their boyfriends almost as
much as the guys hate shopping. As the marketing gurus say,
where there is an unmet consumer demand, there is an opportunity.
First to find a way to fill that wish is the Braehead
Shopping Centre in Glasgow, Scotland, which is testing a scheme
that provides a shop-friendly male guide for the woman and a kind
of day-care center at the mall for her boyfriend.
Freed from the rigors of shopping with their girlfriends,
the un-shopable guys can relax with video games and a selection
of men's magazines until they get picked up and taken home again.
"The Shopping Boyfriend is the ultimate retail therapist:
enthusiastic, attentive, admiring and complimentary," said
Carol-Ann Stewart from the company behind the pilot scheme
Lucozade Energy. "He will browse with the girlfriend for hours
on end. He'll even say her bum looks small." (Reuters)
[ Easy for the "Shopping Boyfriend" -- after
all, isn't he getting paid to be a kind of
shopping gigolo? ]
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NAKED CONSUMERISM...
-----------------
Early last year, the Kleider Bauer Department Stores of
Austria announced a promotion that they would offer $385 in free
clothing at each of their 40 stores to the first five people who
proved that they needed something to wear.
By showing up at the counter naked.
Surprisingly, many hundreds of people took them up on the
offer, standing outside in long clothesless lines along the store
on Vienna's main shopping street - the Mariahilfer - waiting for
the doors to open.
"I'm doing it for the sheer hell of it, not the money," a
male shopper/stripper said. "People should be more open and not
such prudes."
Since Austria has amazingly liberal attitudes to naked folks
walking the streets - or standing in line at the department store
- no one was arrested.
Shoppers beaten out of the first five spots in the in the
streak received a consolation prize of $35 -- and a towel to
cover up. (Reuters)
[ Nope. Anything I say here would just get
me in trouble... ]
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© 2001 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.
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