Yesterday I had the opportunity to read the packaging on numerous brands of condoms. That’s right, I now know what the various sizes are (marketing genius made sure there were no extra small sizes, but an extra large to capture the bachelor party gag gift revenue), what the various textures are (ultra thin, extra sensitive, ribbed, something labeled twisted pleasure and a concerning offering that apparently pulsates – don’t ask me for details on that, I decided it was best not to know), quantity options, tip construction alternatives and a whole bevy of lube options including grape and strawberry flavor.
But it didn’t end there. I further enhanced my worldly knowledge by reading all of the personal lubrication gels and a suprisingly large number of pregnancy tests. On the lube front, there was the standard KY options but the most interesting was the His and Hers option which looked like the dual tube packaging for strong epoxies. Chuckling to myself, I thought that it might be an abstinence conctraceptive based on welding something shut. I must have read 10 E.P.T boxes trying to figure out the differences. Admittedly, I couldn’t figure it out beyond possibly the wait cycles or method of displaying the results. I wondered if the talking greeting card technology had made its way into this market giving us a recorded message based on the results displayed on the stick. In fact, think of the whole opportunity for Hallmark –
- “Congratulations, you’re a winner”
- “You’re gonna need some new clothes”
- “Another bullet dodged”
- “Your Mom’s heart attack has been avoided”
- For him: “Hurray for new boobies”
- For him: “Sorry, quality control has experienced a failure”
Okay, cutting myself off because that was waaaay to much fun. I will take any submissions from my readers. If this idea takes hold, I want it to be known I thought of it first and I want royalties.
Any chance the question popped into your head as to why I was relishing in this particular aisle? Your assumptions are most likely wrong. The reality of it is I was waiting to get my prescription filled at the Walmart out on Allen Rd. in Peoria. I hit a prompt care to get relief from a sinus infection and decided to pop over to Walmart Pharmacy (they wave the co-pay winning the choice over the closer CV). The benches they have for people to wait are located straight out and perpendicular to the pharmacy counter. This also places it directly in line with the store shelves which had the contents I discussed above. I get bored very easy so tend to take in everything I can find and product packaging is a ripe distraction. So, sorry to burst the image bubble, but I was just sitting in the aisle reading the shelves from about 5 feet away. Have I mentioned lately how must I love my new eyes?
What this does mean is a complete lack of privacy for individuals that want to actually purchase these products. Imagine at least four people (men, women, children) sitting there staring at you while you make your selection. And if that is not enough, you have all the people standing in line to pay for their prescriptions at the pharmacy desk. Someone in the store layout either has a sense of humor, insensitive to a generally private matter or possibly this is a very common shop lifted item that they feel needs to have an extra layer of free security protection (sometimes I crack myself up). I actually don’t have an answer for which option really applies in this case. I am not sure I want to discourage the use of contraceptives since the local state portion of my daily paper seems to indicate the abstinence approach to reducing unwed pregnancies is not that effective. But I have to vote against the layout guy not knowing what he was doing since he had a logical order to the shelves – condoms, lubes and then the EPTs seems like a pretty smart grouping.
Yes, an individual did come to the aisle to make a purchase. He was probably in his late 30s or early 40s and was very interested in the top shelves that held the lubes and the EPTs. In contrast to what my comfort level if it was me, he was pretty much oblivious to me watching him the entire 15 minutes he spent there. I couldn’t tell exactly what product he was analyzing because his back was to me, but he was very thorough in his assessment. He even opened the box and began reading the detailed instructions. Eventually, he repackaged the box and proceed to make the purchase at the pharmacy counter. I still couldn’t see what he had, but based on the shelf gap, I’m guessing lube. Nothing like an informed consumer.
Hopefully I did not offend anyone with today’s post. I blog it as I see it and I didn’t want to waste a solid 30 minuts of field work and some definite business opportunities await. Hmmm, clarification, business opportunities in the EPT market, not to imply any reference to my previous post on the Vegas women.
Life Intrigued 