Exchange | The Real Reality Show Blog

It’s that time again, the time when if you don’t pull the mental chain your brain will back up and then you’ll have to get out the big plunger.

Misunderstanding

You’ll recall my recent discussion on non-dairy butter, not the concept but that the package read “butter.” Not “plant butter,” not “soy butter,” not “butter tasting butter substitute,” but “butter.” I guess I have a wider readership than even I could have imagined. Shortly after that post – ummm – posted the ACLU filed suit against Arkansas claiming the state’s new labeling law stipulating that only meat can be called meat, only milk can be called milk, only rice can be called rice, and presumably only butter can be called butter violates the manufacturers’ of the ersatz products free speech. Hmm. Now this is just a thought, but if American chicken and hog farmers actually came up with green eggs and ham and attempted to market them as “broccoli” and “kale” would that same ACLU step in to protect them?

Although I don’t like it and have said so, there is no stopping American stores from running back to school sales in July. I’m sorry but in my mind that is just way too early. And I’ve been one of those parents with a calendar on the kitchen wall crossing off the days until those kids go back to school! But I get it, it’s a once a year marketing opportunity and they have to make hay, or money, while the sun shines. But now I have a real issue with those stores. Two days ago I was in the local supermarket and at the end of the “seasonal” aisle where all the back to school items were located was a big display of Halloween candy. Come on now!

This morning a man was stopped at the local airport for carrying a loaded gun in his carry on bag. It was the 23rd such seizure this year. Today is the 210th day of 2019 so a little more frequently than once every 10 days somebody is trying to sneak a gun into the secure area of the airport. Ours is not a particularly large airport with about 400 departures a day. I can’t imagine what TSA agents at a big airport find. I said those people carrying weapons are trying to sneak a gun past security. They claim they “forgot” the gun was in their carryon or they “had it when they were at the range last week.” Did they really? Did they really bring their travel carryon to the range last week? The gun confiscated this morning had 14 bullets in the clip, the clip in the gun, and an additional bullet in the chamber. Doesn’t seem like something one could, or should “forget.”

The lawyers at Publishers Clearing House are really good. You’re not going to see them okay an ad that calls margarine butter, I mean that says “You are a winner!” No, they say you could be a winner or you might be holding the winning entry. They ain’t gonna get sued for stretching the truth. I got another one of those mailings last week. Not from PCH. From the dealership where I bought my car and have it serviced. That would be Car #2, not the daily driver although the last letter I got was in reference to my everyday vehicle. Car #1 is a ten year old Chevrolet Malibu and earlier this year the dealer sent me a notice that it was time to “exchange” that car for a new model. I agreed with them but when I went over to swap keys and registrations they really wanted me to exchange money for a new car! I knew all along they weren’t serious but I had to go over for a state inspection anyway so I thought I’d see how much I could get out of them. Not much it turned out. Last week’s letter was from a different dealer about a different car. I know it’s a marketing tool just like back to school sales in July but the letter says they need cars like mine to “fulfill special used vehicle requests.” This particular car is not a 10 year old Chevy. It’s a 20 year old Mazda Miata with not quite 31,000 miles. I bought it from this dealer and they have serviced it since it was in the internal combustion engine equivalent of diapers. They might very well have a request for such a car. But when they say “We would like to exchange your 2000 Mazda MX-5 Miata for any new or Certified Pre-Owned Mazda from our inventory,” I doubt their sincerity. But as fate would have it, Wednesday I have a service appointment there for that very car. I know just the new Miata in their inventory that would make a dandy exchange!

I feel better now that I held my occasional brain dump. Thank you for tolerating me. I’d be happy to exchange your new reading for my old writing any day!

Miata

I hate liars. Everybody tells a little fib now and then. (That’s the best cauliflower rice dough pizza. You can’t even tell it has no gluten, cholesterol, fat, calories, taste, or appreciation for a life worth living.) But outright “I know this is blatantly false and I’m saying it only because I want to trick your ass” falsehoods are just wrong. And professional lying like done by every politician and used car salesman since 1959 is the worst.

Those professional liars are getting really good at it. Much of their lying is so subtle we don’t even recognize it as not true. Take the word “free,” a perfectly good word. I think if you ask anybody what the word means you would be told “enjoying personal liberty as in freedom” or “given without cost.” Lexicographers would differ. Well … not so much differ as embellish, just like the liars. Dictionary dot com list 40 definitions for “free,” Cambridge English has 24, Merriam Webster 20, and even the venerable OED lists 14 definitions of the word. That’s why people can take a perfectly good word like “free,” put it in front of another word like “shipping” and feel justified telling you how much it will cost to ship your purchase if it doesn’t meet a minimum amount spent.

The local supermarket where I do most of my grocery shopping has taken to telling the truth. I must tell you, it confuses me sometimes. If you join their loyalty program you get a weekly e-mail offering some incredible value at not just a ridiculously low price but almost always free. A couple weeks ago this deal was a case of their bottled water for 49 cents. This week it’s a can of Coca-Cola for free. And they really mean free. Not with the purchase of another can. Not with a minimum total spent. It’s free. You go into the store, grab a can and take it to the checkout lane where someone will scan the can and scan your loyalty card, then the cash register will total up $0.00 and off you go. Of course they hope you buy something else but you don’t have to. Free means free.

Another perfectly good word is “exchange.” This word even has the dictionaries agreeing there is little room for ambiguity. “An act of giving one thing and receiving another (especially of the same type or value) in return” is the number one definition in the Oxford English Dictionary, and except for references to where stocks are traded and a short conservation or argument, every reference to “exchange” is pretty much the giving and getting of something similar. Our general use of the word confirms that. Next week, if next week was fifty years ago, elementary school kids across the country will hold a “Valentine Exchange” at school and everybody gives and gets happy heart shaped cards. (Who knows what they do today.) Just a couple months ago at Christmas time you may have participated in a “Holiday Gift Exchange” at work when to keep in the spirit of exchange a dollar amount was stipulated. Even businesses know that to be an exchange a transaction must be of equal value. Gold and jewelry exchanges all over swap fresh money for old gold at a specifically noted “rate of exchange.”