The black-shirted salespeople crowding the T-Mobile telephone’s display floor at this year’s county fair resembled a flock of hungry crows. They had descended to hunt for the morsels that would make their day—fresh customers to purchase profitable cell phone contracts. The trouble was that there were no customers to be found. Either this busy team of sales crows had already choked out demand by peddling their wares to every passerby, or, like nervous insects, the customer population had fled the area, taking flight before a predator.
I’d put money on the latter scenario. Likewise, I won’t buy a redundant, overhyped electronic gizmo.
My life suffers from simpler needs. I crave low-tech solutions to low-tech problems.
Case in point–bathroom odors. I’m tired of pinching out candles that were lit by a previous toilet occupier. The candle flames may have been burning for hours, threatening to melt counter tops and depleting oxygen supplies to a prized co-inhabiting African Grey Parrot.
Dangerous stuff. I need Febreze, the safe and pleasantly-scented odor-killing product.
When it was first introduced to the public, the odor-eliminating product Febreze was a sales flop. It certainly did its job, however. Tests proved that it wiped out unpleasant odors unlike any other product. However, it was a difficult sell because the people who needed it most weren’t interested. They had become so acclimated to the stinky smells embedded in their carpet by incontinent pets that they sensed no objectionable odors. Why would they need an odor killer?
The customers who did decide to try Febreze didn’t realize how effective it was. It destroyed odors so completely they thought the product had done nothing at all. It left no smell behind. There was no smell at all. (There was also no residue and no potential lethal house-burning-down candle flame.)
So what allowed Febreze to eventually succeed? The future of Febreze turned on one small change in the product’s formula. They added a fragrance that the human nose could detect, so that, after using Febreze, whether upon nasty pet carpet or pleasant-enough households, things smelled fresh. Never mind that the added fresh-smelling fragrance held no other functional purpose than to mark its presence.
People sensed it was doing something because it now left an irresistibly beautiful scent behind. Things smelled clean, so the product must be effective.
I, too, have become a convert, so I’ll buy a case of Febreze. I’ll put a can in every bathroom and two spare cans beneath each sink. I’ll put one in the car and in my shoe closet, just for good measure.
At next year’s county fair, I’ll square off by inhabiting a booth perched directly across from T-Mobile’s techno-cornucopia. My humble crew of three will be-shirt ourselves with lavender, blue and pink t-shirts with the word Febreze in-scripted across the front. We’ll challenge one of the top carriers in the telecommunications industry with hope instead of pandering to redundant and ubiquitous telecommunications technology.
There’s hope for our bathrooms. There’s hope for our odors.
There’s hope to change the most banal of life’s daily needs, transforming befouled air by converting it into odor-obliterated, fresh-scented freely-breathable air.
Right now, I need that more than another fancy, feature-driven piece of technology.
Ahhhh. Can’t you just not smell it?