They’ll Re-Member This Lesson

When my wife and I were newlyweds, we got an invitation to check out a wholesale club. During the ninety-minute sales pitch, we were told about all the members they had, the monthly cost, the values of the deals, etc. — lots of nice numbers for a numbers guy like me. When the guy telling us about the program stepped away near the end of the whole thing, I had a hushed conversation with my wife. We could see the store area the whole time.

Me: “Okay. The way I figure it, to justify the monthly fees to this club, we’d have to be doing significant shopping here several days a week.”

Wife: “Yeah, I see that.”

Me: “And they say they have [number] members who would all have to be doing the same to even bother having the membership, right?”

Wife: “Um…?”

Me: “Considering their hours and all, we should have seen over eighty shoppers here since we’ve been here. How many have you noticed coming through?”

Wife: “Just two.”

Me: “Yeah, me, too. Their business is just getting people to cough up a monthly fee. I think we’re going to give this opportunity a miss.”

Of course, in retrospect, I suppose that they could have been lying about membership. But since that would be to falsely convince us that it was a good thing to spend money on, it remained a bad thing to join.