Ever hear that before? Sure you have. And now we know that like most cliché-based nonsense there is some actual sense to it. But it’s not just sailors. It’s all of us. Well, most of us.
Yes, in the shrinking world of studies of the obvious, in the tightening belt of silly professors who earn degrees by prodigiously quoting relevant works of other silly professors, in the world of a uncaluclated ridiculistics, we now know what Ensign Spencer taught us in the first known shore leave of the year 1345, drunken sailors and others with more drink than sense spend more than those with less.
Here is the figure: $448 per capita. We know it’s true because it’s baloney wrapped in arithmetic and presented by the authoritative website no one’s ever heard of, Finder.com. And baloney wrapped in arithmetic must be true.
More shoes, more booze.
The new figure -- 448 -- is more than twice the amount we drank and spent in the previous year, says the website.
Bigger phones. Ice cream cones.
The matter doesn’t matter, just the spending. So, maybe Sears, Penney’s and other failing retail goliaths should offer free adult refreshments at their entrances and set up a cash bar at mid-store where that little taste at the entrance made you remember how much you like Johnny Walker or Jim Beam.
Mandolins and SCUBA fins.
All kind of stuff you decide on the spot you can’t live without, you get to live with. Oh. Did I say “cash bar?” The real smart merchants can accept MobsterCard with the vigorish of 26.78 percent issued by one of those “banks” with no branches no savings or checking accounts and odd names like Synchronous or Commanderly -- you know, the ones that do nothing much but issue credit cards with department store names affixed under license.
Now where are those smart retailers, longing for customers with open wallets? Why, they’re wringing their hands instead of ringing their registers, figuring out what to do next.
This is what to do next. Take a lesson from the Navy, the Merchant Marine and anyone who has swamped your canoe by crossing it with a speedboat traveling at 49 knots and leaving a wake as high as a jailhouse wall. Drunken sailors aren’t all in the Navy. And the actual Navy doesn’t do things like swamp civilian watercraft on Lake Connawestaki.
Statistical sleight of hand is one of the great secrets of mathematical mystics. So keep in mind that there were only 2,000 drunken shoppers questioned in this survey and probably some of them lied! (Can you imagine?) But you probably know that when under the influence, you’re more likely than usual to say “yes” to a proposition you might reject while sober.
So, things like this happen: Sign right here, pal, and this beautifully hand crafted scale model of a 1927 a North Shore Long Island lighthouse can be yours for three easy payments of just $95.99. It’s just like the one John Hay Whitney could see from the upper floors of his Shelter Rock Road estate. (Note, the estate is nowhere near a body of water.)
Or this:
Her: “Are you sure you’re single?”
Him: “Of course Charline, would I lie to you about something like that?”
She: “Charlotte. And I hope the room has a nice view and a good mini bar. Anchors aweigh and rough rolling seas ahead.”
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
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© WJR 2018
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