Trekkychick

Dear Readers,

tacky, but free

So as my nearby beloved Hollywood Video recently became another casualty to the new generation of netflixers, it held a final closing sale to part with its cinematic stock. “Everything Must Go!” reported the banner strewn across the front of the store. “Prices marked down 30-50%!”

Now, I’ve never taken a business class, and I presume the definition of a liquid asset to be a really tasty microbrew, but I know the urgency connotated by “must” (Troi on a road trip of more than 10 minutes in duration: “We must stop now and find a rest area!”) and if everything really must go, wouldn’t marking it down by 100% speed up the exit of products from a store?

And it’s not just Hollywood Video’s oversight. In this economy businesses are closing their doors with lightning speed, each closure allegedly necessitating the elimination of all unsold stock, and yet not a single business uses my suggested catch phrase: “Everything must go. So come in and take it. For free.”

You may have heard that everyone’s favorite word is their own name. This is a misnomer. Everyone’s favorite word is actually “free.” Everyone’s favorite short phrase incorporates both their first name and the word “free,” as in, “Hey [insert your name here], did you hear about the free [insert object here]?”

A price reduction of 100%, rendering an item entirely without cost, is irresistible to the average American. Consider this: Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shoppe. People stand in line for hours salivating at the anticipation of a miniature confection that will take 1/100th the time to consume. And in Portland, our Ben & Jerry’s is downtown. The only way to get there is to take public transportation, which costs $4.75 for an all-day pass (which, face it, you’ll need if you’re waiting in line for that free cone), or to drive, which requires the price of public parking at $1.60/hour. It would be cheaper to walk to the nearest Fred Meyer and buy a half-gallon of Tillamook ice cream, which, if you were wondering, is bigger than a free cone at Ben & Jerry’s. But you don’t hear anybody saying, “Hey, it’s free cone day at Ben & Jerry’s! Let’s go to Fred Meyer and buy a half-gallon of Tillamook ice cream!” Instead, you hear them saying, “Hey, it’s free cone day at Ben & Jerry’s! Let’s drive down there, pay our life savings in parking fees to the city of Portland, spend three hours waiting in line in the Portland rain, and receive a single spoonful of ice cream in return for our troubles, because it’s free.”

And it’s not just Free Cone Day that sucks us in. Upon moving out, my roommate recently attempted to unload his surplus of worthless belongings onto my already sizable collection of worthless belongings.

“Look what a great pencil-holder this tacky ceramic teacup makes!” he suggested hopefully after carefully arranging my stray pencils in an awkward arrangement in the teacup.

“No way,” I answered firmly. “I don’t want your stuff. Get rid of it.”

“But…..it’s free,” he continued. “You don’t have to pay a thing for it!”

“FREE??” I exclaimed excitedly. “I’ll take two tacky ceramic teacups, then!”

Dangle the word “free” in front of us, and suddenly our whole outlook on consumerism changes. The words “Buy one get one free” add a whole new lure to the purchase of previously undesirable products. I recently bought mascara on a “buy one get one free” sale at Fred Meyer. I don’t even wear mascara. Certainly, it would have made more financial sense to buy no mascara for free than to buy two tubes of mascara at some cost to me. But the only word I saw was “free,” and now I’m trying to sell mascara on eBay.

“Free” is indeed a magical word. So Hollywood Video would do well to take my financial advice and mark down their movies by 100%. Because if “everything must go,” that should do it.

–Troi out

Comment now on Troi’s newest post for a chance to win a FREE* year’s subscription to her bestselling blog!

*All sales final. No exchanges or returns, no matter how unpleasant the reading experience.