The Bottom Line

I wrote a few blogs before I came to Paradise for days such as this one. I am sure that if I put my mind to it, I would be able to come up with something that I could be happy with, but I am feeling rather lazy. Perhaps I have "Islanditis". There is a good chance that it is only a 24 hour bug.

I was in the local gas station waiting for the privilege of paying for my gas today with about ten other patrons. God knows the oil companies need to cut back on staff so that they can pass on a few more cents to their investors. Screw the customers!

Anyways, as I was standing in line I couldn't help but notice all of the candies and chocolate bars that the store offers. There were all sorts of containers and packages in all sizes and all of the colours of the rainbow. Some colours that would amaze a rainbow. When I had finished paying I took the time to wander around the store and see what else that they offered for sale.

There were the expected products of course. They had different kinds of oil, transmission fluid, windshield cleaner, wiper blades, newspapers and magazines, fuses and many other things that are the kind of thing a person with mechanical leanings might need. They had several different kinds of coffee, hot chocolate, mocha, fruit slushy drinks, soda pop slushy drinks, milk shakes, tea of all kinds and of course a veritable cornucopia of pop, milk products, many types of water and the ever present “power” drinks. There were chips, popcorn candy bars, sandwiches and some very dodgy looking hot dogs that were rotating under a heat lamp and appeared to have been doing so for the past couple of years. Who in their right mind would buy this kind of crap? Oh yeah...the munchies.

One thing I noticed about the the packaging of the candies is that the containers were pretty small and the price was pretty big. I noticed that the candies in some of the small containers were miniature versions of real size candy. I guess that is to fool you into thinking you are getting a good deal. It wouldn't fool you or I, but don't forget the target market here seems to be people who are stoned out of their minds.

The candy, pop, coffee, air fresheners, stuffed animals, magazines and books, oil and all of the other car related paraphernalia I can understand, they are things that someone just might need when they are filling the car up with gas. I just can't wrap my head around buying food that could potentially give you food poisoning. It's not as if there aren't thousands of restaurants to choose from that are open pretty much 24/7 where you can get something to eat and not worry about dry sweats and dry heaves for the next 24 to 48 hours. I suppose that you just can't measure the depths of stupidity.

Whenever a product changes it's packaging, it indicates to me that they are giving you less product for the same amount of money. I used to love Mars bars! Then the packaging changed and so did the taste. I still bought them from time to time, but now I can take them or leave them. I was lucky enough to run into a sales agent for the Mars company and she told me that the company had gone to sugar beets to flavour the bars instead of sugar cane due to the high cost of real sugar. I told her that I could tell the difference and didn't buy as many bars. She tole me I was in the minority and the company was willing to lose business for the savings. She smiled, gave me a Mars bar and left me standing there, and got in her car and drove off.

Perhaps the customer is always right, but the bottom line is in fact the bottom line.