wombat

Things I Learn in Retail

Luxury [luhk-shuh-ree] n.

1. a material object, service, etc., conducive to sumptuous living, usually a delicacy, elegance, or refinement of living rather than a necessity: Gold cufflinks were a luxury not allowed for in his budget.
2. free or habitual indulgence in or enjoyment of comforts and pleasures in addition to those necessary for a reasonable standard of well-being: a life of luxury on the French Riviera.

On the rather long list of extraneous expenditures that we as human beings often indulge are things like gold-plated rims for our SUVs, bottles of Bordeaux from 1890, slices of cake from Henry VIII's wedding, and Pre-embargoed Cuban cigars. Of course there is varied spectrum of price and status within each category. For instance: A five-dollar bottle of Arbor Mist purchased for the intention of getting a female drunk to ensure coitus, a Tasty Kake on a lunch break, or a four-dollar "carbon copy" cigar modeled after the shape and flavor of a name brand. All of these are still, none the less, luxuries. They are not essential to living or surviving -- they merely cushion the blow of reality. They exist to absorb the oft excruciating monotony of day-to-day living.

But, just because you're buying a Tasty Kake which costs a dollar or so doesn't mean you can plop whatever change you have in your pocket onto a counter and "call it even." You cannot walk into a Wawa and come up more than 50% short of the actual price and say "I'll be back in a few hours." More so, you can't continually do this, on a daily basis, only to not return "in a few hours" as promised, accruing over twenty dollars in Tasty Kake debt over the course of a few weeks. If you did this, you would not be allowed to buy Tasty Kakes anymore. At least not in Wawa. Your pastry scam would have to find a new sucker.

So, why can people do this with cigars? Tasty Kakes at least provide sustenance. Cigars do not. They are more a luxury than Tasty Kakes in this sense because the only product of a Cigar is relaxation -- unless you count camaraderie, which you shouldn't count, because it is just as much a luxury as the smoking itself, because it costs time. So, does it make sense that a person should be able to go into a cigar shop, every day, throw down a wrinkled dollar bill and a few dimes accompanied with the lie "That's four dollars, I'll be back in a few hours," and not come back until the next day when he does the same thing? For one: It's NEVER four dollars on the counter. Today it was $2.36. The actual price with tax is $4.27. Sure, that's only a difference of about two bucks, but, imagine how much it costs over a few months. Some quick math will tell you that one month of dealing with such a customer would cost you about sixty dollars.

It is a dance, I suppose. He's says "I'll pay," and we say "Yeah yeah, sure sure." Because, in the long run, it's not a huge deal. We aren't exactly losing money -- though we aren't making any either, which I presupposed was the goal of a business, but whatever. What is one man's small joy in the bigger scheme of things? If he wants to believe this "deal" is a product of his loyalty and long-standing "patronage," let him believe it. Let him have this luxury.

The point is this: Why spend money on a luxury you can't afford? Why does anyone do it? We have all spent beyond our own means, only to go into debt -- for me it's been with poker, and musical instruments. For others it is four-dollar cigars. It doesn't really matter what it is. It is merely a "thing" which we rationalize as necessity because it takes us from our real lives and puts us somewhere more pleasant. We put our proverbial change on the counter and look pleadingly into the eyes of those who hold sway over our small joys and hope they will be human enough to grant us a few precious moments that are not tied up in this reality which, more often than not, serves as nothing more than a slaughterhouse for our dreams.

Posted by wombat at January 9, 2008 11:05 AM