Why were we put on this planet?
That’s a question some of us ponder now and then.
The answer was revealed to me this fall from trips to Harbor Freight, a gas station and Rite Aid.
Needing a flashlight and knowing their wide selection, I stepped into Harbor Freight. The cashier/clerk immediately asked what I was looking for.
“A flashlight,” I answered.
She told me the aisle. I thanked her and went to the flashlights.
I selected a powerful flashlight, brought it to the checkout counter, and began pulling money from my wallet. I knew the price and was ready to pay.
Whoa, not so fast.
“What’s your phone number?” the same helpful cashier/clerk queried, before even scanning the item.
Probably I winced or made an involuntary grimace. I’ve been known to do that for I dislike it when stores ask me that question.
I pay good money each month to the phone company to keep my number unlisted. This is why we did not receive any phone calls pushing any candidates or parties during election season. Plus, I did not want to risk receiving promotional phone calls from Harbor Freight.
“Your computer doesn’t know my phone number, and it doesn’t need to know,” I answered. “I’m a cash customer. Cash and carry.” I pulled currency from my wallet and we proceeded.
I paid for the flashlight and waited for the expected change.
Whoa, not so fast.
“Would you like your receipt sent to your telephone or to your email?”
Another ridiculous question, needlessly prolonging the purchase process. I summoned my civility and said, “We’ve already established that you don’t have my phone number, which you’ve already asked for. And you don’t have my email address. So it seems a pointless question. However, to answer it, I would like the receipt printed out and handed to me on a tiny slip of paper. Is that still possible?” (At times I can be a male version of the character Julia Sugarbaker from the Designing Women television show.)
I got the receipt and my change and even an apology from the cashier/clerk.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I had to ask. It’s part of my job.”
I nodded sympathetically. “And you’re doing an excellent job, if I may say.” That brightened her. “And it’s my job to safeguard my privacy and try to help others safeguard theirs.”
Before heading home I stopped to gas up the car at a filling station. It was one I had used maybe twice in the past. Only this time things were different.
As I pumped gas into the tank, loud commercials shrilled at me non-stop from the pump. I stopped filling and went to the pump. Unlike in other filling stations, this one had no labeled button to guide a patron to mute the shrilling or even to lower its obnoxious volume. I tried every button anyway, but none of them did the trick. Defeated, I finished pumping the gas and left. That is one filling station I will never visit again.
After that I picked up my wife and we went to Rite Aid for some reason. While there, as she is wont to do, my wife strolled over to the pharmacy area to measure her blood pressure at a machine labeled a Higi. It’s a chair with an attached cuff. Sit, insert your arm, press a button, the cuff tightens around your arm, and the device displays your blood pressure.
Except this time things were different.
When my wife put her arm in the sleeve and tried to push the button, the machine refused to comply. I could almost feel it shaking its head gleefully at her, delighted to thwart her wishes.
Turns out what used to be a free and commendable health service for everyone is no longer an option for some Rite Aid patrons. Now, before the cuff measures one’s blood pressure, one must first input one’s email address.
Why? Beats me. Reckon it’s so the Higi company can use your email address to try to sell you things, or perhaps even sell your email address to other companies so that everyone can hawk their products or services at you.
My wife does not use email and is too honest to input a fictitious address. So we were stymied. We exited Rite Aid without having her blood pressure taken.
It’s clear now that the reason we were put on this planet — the purpose of life, if you will — is so we can be marketed to perpetually by computerized devices that don’t care if their pitches are welcome or not.
Though admittedly in the minority, I positively object to the corporate world’s escalating regard of consumers as people whose sole significance is to be a target for electronic marketing techniques.
If you must market to us, please use the United States Postal Service to deliver your ads. They could use the money.
