‘Tell me how that machines works.’
‘You throw your coins into the chute and the machine sorts
them, adds them up, and gives you a voucher in return.’
‘A voucher for what?’
‘A voucher to spend anywhere in the store.’
‘Does it charge a fee?’
‘Yes, a percentage of the amount you put in.’
‘So let me get this straight. You pay a machine to take money off you and spend what you’ve got left in Sainsbury’s because you can’t
spend it anywhere else?’
‘I suppose so, but people put their small coins in jars and
things, then bring them in here to change.’
‘Why don’t they just keep their small coins in their pockets
or purses and spend them as they go along? That way they wouldn’t have to pay a
machine to take money off them.’
‘Erm… I don’t know, but
lots of people do it!’
So the message is: if lots of people do something, it must
make sense. Got it now.
* * *
And I was in the lingerie section of a shop today with Mel
when I spotted packs of something that looked like half a bra. The label said ‘strapless,
backless bra.’ It seemed the packs contained not half a bra, but two halves
of a bra nestled together.
This is something else that’s always intrigued me. You
sometimes see women wearing off-the-shoulder gowns, and yet they appear to
exhibit perfect uplift (if that’s the right term) without so much as a hint of
a strap in sight. I went over and read the small print. Adhesive bra, it said (in small print.) Adhesive? You mean it
sticks to something? I went back to Mel.
‘Those bra things over there use the word ‘adhesive.’ To
what, precisely, do they adhere?’
She didn't know, so I went to Plan B.
‘Do you think it would be improper of me to go and ask that
young woman shop assistant over there?’
‘Yes.’
So I didn’t, and I’m still none the wiser.
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