This week I want to dip into my The Internet Is Full Of Good Ideas file.
Unfortunately, that file is empty. But, I did find this idea lurking on the web hoping, I trust, not to be found.
A leading, expensive, socially-conscious grocery chain, known for its emphasis on health and wellness, is opening a flock of smaller stores to attract millennial shoppers. Apparently, millennials are frightened by some aspects of 20th century retailing such as product choice and aisles wide enough to hold both a shopping cart and shopper.
It would be in bad taste for me to identify this grocery chain, but you’d know it in a minute because its name rhymes with “whole paycheck.”
Approximately.
(I don’t feel comfortable mentioning the name of the smaller stores, either, but if I say, “How many days in 2016?” and you forget it’s a leap year, we’re good.)
The executives in charge of these smaller stores recently floated the idea of bolstering their inventory of millennial favorites, such as non-GMO bottled water, with “cool street services,” that would lead to the opportunity for “a super cool hang.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, one such service might be a tattoo parlor. Honestly, what says health and wellness more than sticking a needle in your arm for the purpose of placing pigments, such as iron oxide, into the the layer of dermal tissue underlying the epidermis?
Even if the iron oxide—common name, rust—is non-GMO.
All we can do is sit back and admire this kind of creative thinking, which has the power to make grown men and women go slack jawed.
(Inside the executive board room of a leading, expensive, socially-conscious grocery chain.)
TRIFFLSLAG: SO WHAT ARE YOUR IDEAS FOR COOL STREET SERVICES?
EXECUTIVE 1: BICYCLE REPAIR.
EXECUTIVE 2: KNIFE SHARPENING.
BRIMLEY: TATTOOING.
(There’s an uneasy quiet in the room.)
TRIFFLSLAG: NOW LOOK HERE…
BRIMLEY: …BRIMLEY…
TRIFFSLAG: …BRIMLEY, HOW DOES TATTOOING REPRESENT HEALTH AND WELLNESS?
BRIMLEY: IT’S EASIER TO CARRY OUT YOUR PURCHASES IF THEY’RE TATTOOED TO YOUR ARMS AND LEGS.
TRIFFLSLAG: WAIT, DO YOU MEAN…?
BRIMLEY: YES. WE ALSO GET RID OF SHOPPING CARTS.
TRIFFLSLAG: FOR EVERY CART, THAT MEANS WE SQUEEZE IN…
BRIMLEY: …TWO MORE SHOPPERS.
(Realizing how tattooing would make their profits healthy and improve the wellness of the executives, the group votes unanimously to add tattoo parlors, even though the bicycle repair and knife sharpening have to go.).
Lost in the euphoria is what it will take to educate their millennial customers on some new checkout procedures.
(At the checkout lines, the monotonous beep, beep, beep of the bar code scanners is suddenly broken by an ominous, growling…)
BURRRMM.
CHECKER: PLEASE HOLD STILL SIR WHILE I GET THE PRICE OF THAT TOMATO ON YOUR THORAX.
BURRRMM.
CHECKER: COULD YOU TURN A BIT TOWARD ME? GOOD. NOW, IF YOU RAISE YOUR RIGHT ARM AND WRAP IT ALL THE WAY AROUND THAT RUTABAGA BEIND YOUR LEFT EAR. GOOD. DEEP BREATH.
BEEEEP.
CHECKER: EXCELLENT, SIR. NOW, PARDON ME WHILE I GET DOWN ON ALL FOURS AND GO FOR THAT JAR OF DILL PICKLES BETWEEN YOUR…
Okay, then.
The company had been soliciting ideas for more cool street services on its website. Unfortunately, the suggestion period is over so I can’t offer one of my own. If these executives are still scraping the Internet for super cool hangs, however, perhaps they’ll come across this. I suggest a psychological counseling booth.
Not in the stores, in the executive suite.
Because someone is in need of a grown-up super cool hang.
(Thanks to charter subscriber Jay Mitchell for tipping me off to this story.)
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Jay, I just subscribed today and I am catching up on your writing. my immediate response to this subject is that someday, when it’s way to late, the millennials will wake up and say, “Wait, what happened?”.
Hi Robbie…
When I interviewed Jason he told me you want to be careful what kind of tattoo you put on what body part. As an example, he used a woman’s breast. “The tattoo that looks great when she’s 20 may not look so good when she’s 45,” he told me.
Well, yes, but I doubt we’ll ever know.
–jay