The other day, I bought a package of 16 chicken sandwiches from Costco. It was the really good kind with cheese. Anyway, I was all happy about it, thinking that 16 sandwiches should hold me for quite some time. So merrily, I began my odyssey of eating sandwiches for various meals, convinced that I would be a chicken-eating happy camper for some time to come. The other day, I put the last chicken sandwich in the microwave, thinking nothing of it, until I realized that it was the last one. It was then that I started to think back on the recent events of my life, and realizing that unlike other people, I didn’t think about the mad affair with the twin blondes from Sweden, the narrow escape from death I had fighting ninjas who were hell-bent on keeping me from their attempt to destroy our American way of life, nor did I reflect upon my invite to the White House where President Obama asked me to fix that small problem he was having in the Middle East. No, my reflection went straight back to that purchase of 16 chicken sandwiches and my realization that I had not in fact eaten 16 chicken sandwiches since buying that package. In fact, I could only remember eating 8. It was then that I realized I had probably been cheated, fooled and/or bamboozled by yet another American greedy corporation. I had been cheated of chicken.
You see, what I realized was that this chicken selling company had done was package 8 separate chicken meals and then count each packaged sandwich as two meals. When they put the content stuff on the side of the larger package, they decided that each package included two chicken sandwiches, even though the package appeared to be one, tasted like one, and fooled me into thinking it was one. Yet, for credit purposes, they were able to put “16” on the box, counting each of those sandwiches as twice as much food as it really was. No one would know better because when you had that many sandwiches, you wouldn’t know you were down to your last one until you had already gone through more than one man could possibly count at one time. Okay, I’m being a bit ridiculous, but the simple fact of the matter is: They told me I had more food than I actually had.
And I’m pissed.
You see, this happens a lot. The soda companies have been doing this for years, and it has been driving me nuts. I am currently drinking a single bottle of diet Pepsi right now. When I read the contents on the side of the bottle, the manufacturers are actually claiming that I am drinking 2.5 servings of soda right now. They are wrong. I am drinking 1.0 servings of soda right now because no logical person on the face of the freaking planet actually shares a bottle of soda with 1.5 other people. Nor do they poor only 1.0 servings and then put the other 1.5 servings back in the fridge. No, most people open up the one bottle and chug the whole thing down as one serving. This 0.5 crap is just that. Crap.
This also happens with potato chips. Buy a package of chips and that bag of chpis that you are planning to eat alone is actually 2 or 3 servings of chips that they give you the caloric data for one serving, so you think you aren’t eating as much. But everyone knows that one person sits down and pretty much munches down the whole bag.
Somewhere down the line, people who sell us stuff stopped being honest with us. Granted, they weren’t really always that honest with us to begin with, but even further down the line they got worse. The old line of caveat emptor “buyer beware” has always existed, but at some point the honesty should have gotten better, not worse. I remember a time when if you bought something, you were guaranteed to get satisfaction from the manufacturer for the life time of the product. Not any more. Now, when you buy something, Best Buy wants to change you an extra $60 to guarantee that the item will work past the first year. In other words, you can’t trust any company concerning any product because the only guarantee you get from the manufacturer is that it was so cheaply made that you either need to insure it past a year, or you’ll have to buy a new one in a year.
This is my belief why America has lost its way in the international marketplace of products. Years back, you would mention an American product and there was a certain satisfaction that you bought something of quality. Whenever you heard “Made in China” that was an indication that you went the cheap route. Now, any product you buy today is considered the cheap route because NOTHING is guaranteed to be good. If you buy a Japanese car, expect it to accelerate and kill you. If you buy an American car, well, just expect everyone to laugh at you because American car companies haven’t made good cars in decades. Oh, we say they do because we’re all patriotic and all that flag lapel wearing kind of crap, but in reality, when someone mentions an American car, we laugh at them because American cars are generally overpriced, gas guzzlers and overpriced. America no longer stands for quality and good prices. It really doesn’t stand for anything any more.
So, I’ll probably go back to Costco and buy 16 more chicken sandwiches, but at least I know I’m really buying 8. I just like to know when I’m being cheated so I can at least live a little better with myself.