Liquidation Sale
In my former life I was a “sign guy.” I made signs for a living: vehicle lettering, construction site stuff, reception area wall signs…this sort of thing. Most of the stuff I did was pretty basic, but every once in a while I’d run into something interesting.
Case in point:
I had one client who owned several furniture outlets. One particular location he opened up was in a small town that already had its own furniture outlet. This existing furniture store had evidently been there for quite some time. I remember hearing the phrase “third-generation-family-owned” being kicked around. This well established, generational, furniture-selling guy became a real “thorn-in-the-side” to my customer. The exiting furniture guy aggravated my customer and his new location by making legal challenges to such things as his “occupancy permit.” He filed paperwork alleging possible zoning ordinance issues. He brought forth possible federal A.D.A. violations specifying that my client’s “regular parking space” to “handicapped parking space” ratio was not correct. In short, the existing furniture guy became a real pain in the neck. As much as I may have sympathized with the “family owned, generational, small guy,” my client was paying the bills and seeing as how money is thicker than blood, I was going to do whatever my customer ordered.
One day my customer orders a fairly large banner, something in the five foot by forty foot range, that simply stated “LIQUIDATION SALE.” We made the banner, installed it on his storefront, received payment and all was well.
After about six weeks passed by, my customer called and said:
“Hey Baker, we’ve got a problem with the banner.”
“Uh-oh,” I’m thinking to myself. The banner has fallen down, been damaged by a storm, vandalized….something like that. But no, that wasn’t it at all.
My customer’s “thorn-in-the-side” had struck again. This time he had lodged a formal complaint in county court. His contention is that my customer is “misleading the public.” The event my customer is having evidently did not meet the legal definition of a “liquidation sale.”
Seemingly, the “liquidation sale” banner would have to go.
My customer decided that, since he was being accused of “misleading the public” he may as well double down on that effort. This is when my customer turned to me for help.
I’m kind of ashamed that I participated in an advertising deception, but at the same time I was secretly a little proud of the solution.
Sadly, people can be pretty sneaky when they put their mind to it.
As an “ex-sign-guy” I’m here to tell you it’s pretty easy to be deceived by what you see. We can easily be swayed by what the world has to offer and that can be especially true when we don’t stop to “read-the-fine-print.”
There is an interesting theory in the world of marketing called “asymetric dominance.” It’s a phenomenon that occurs in our brains which can cause us to make some bad choices…and the marketing community has successfully capitalized on it. The phenomenon works like this:
If we have a choice between an orange and an apple, we as a population will choose one or the other at a rate of about fifty-fifty. However, if a third option is introduced, specifically one that is a slightly less desirable version of one of the existing choices, (in this case let’s say a gnarled apple), something odd happens. People will overwhelmingly choose the good apple.
So what happened to the orange?!?!
As our brains are making a quick comparison between “gnarled apple” and “regular apple” the orange gets ignored — even if we may have wanted to choose an orange in the first place!
The best place to see this theory in practice is at your local movie theater concession stand. You will notice prices for a “small” (the orange) and prices for a “large” (the regular apple). There will also be prices for a “medium” (the gnarled apple).
Now we all know movie concession stand prices are bad enough to begin with, but some quick math will reveal that the price for the medium is a special kind of rip-off…a “used-car-salesman” kind of rip-off. As such, our brains steer us away from the “medium” but as the “asymetric dominance” theory demonstrates, we are also steered away from the “small.” With that, we have been led to spend more money by choosing the large.¹
Sneaky, sneaky…(finger wag).
Our brains (or stomachs, as the case may be) can get the best of us. It’s a classic example of us “getting-in-our-own-way.” The phenomenon of “asymetric dominance” allows marketers to use our brains against us. They are playing to a weakness we have in order to get us to buy things we don’t need.
The “staunch-free-market-capitalist” inside of me has to tip it’s cap to this bit of marketing genius, but the Christian side of me stops to think about how, over the years, I have “chosen to purchase” a lot of “stuff” I, myself, definitely did not need. I spent emotional energy on the things of this world. I spent words in uncaring, unloving ways. I spent idle time in front of a screen. I spent just about everything I had without even realizing it, then I woke up one day only to find that all of my savings were gone.
Subconsciously, I knew all too well that my choices were bad for my spirit, but I chose to buy them because my flesh wanted them.
Those purchases came with a very high price.
Fortunately, (or unfortunately as the case may be) I have found lots of “good” company in, of all places, the Bible. It turns out that the most holy of books is littered with examples of people who have made some horrendously bad choices.
Since the Bible had not been completed at the time many of these “pharisetic faux pas” were committed, you would have had to read about them in various supermarket tabloids of the day….papers such as “The Son,” “The Wicked World News” or my personal favorite, “The Nazarational Inquirer.” Headlines for some of these, less than holy rollers would have included things like: “King-Bangs-Married-Chick; Bumps-off-Husband”² (David). Or how about the article on Jacob’s sons: “Jealous-Siblings-Hock-Bro-For-Thirty-Sheckels; Ruin Coat.”³ What about the sorid tale of Jonah: “Disobedient-Prophet-Devoured-By-Fish; Puked-On-Beach.”⁴ I’m sure Samson would not have been spared from headlines like: “Jealous-Israelite-Smokes-In-Laws-With-Flaming-Jackles.”⁵ Later mastheads about him probably would have read: “Harry-Strongman-Felled-By-Philistine-Bimbo.”⁶
Writers would have had a field day with Judas Iscariot too: “Miserable-Money-Counter-Maroons-Messiah; Delivers-Kiss-of-Death.”⁷ The front page story about Judas’ rather gruesome self inflicted demise would have been exploited by tabloid “journalists” with headlines like: “Limbless-Truck-Found-In-Branch-of-Tree” or perhaps “Guilt-Ridden-Disciple-Goes-To-Pieces.” Some sleazbag reporter with a dark sense of humor may have penned: “Headless-Man-Found-In-Bottomless-Pit.”⁸
Perhaps, in this context, it’s easy to laugh at Judas, but remember, he paid the ultimate price for selling out Jesus. Sadly though, for quite some time, I was doing the exact same thing as Judas was doing.
This whole “asymetric-dominance-phenomenon” is very sneaky. Life is easy enough when we only have to choose between good and bad.
Paul tells us in his letter to the Galatians that we should be choosing the good “fruits-of-the-Spirit:” love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. So what is it about these fruits? Why don’t we want to choose them?
I will submit this: Our humanity causes us to see these “fruits-of-the-Spirit” as “the gnarled apple.” Choosing them is hard. They take sacrifice and energy; we have to swallow our pride; we have to say “no” to self.
Who wants to do any of that?
So we choose other things that our brain tells us are good; because in comparison, they seem to look better. They’re easy. They make us feel good. Our pride will remain intact …probably?
Don’t let your brain fool you. Picking the wrong fruit has dire consequences.
There is a glimmer of hope; however. As you might expect, there are many Biblical examples of people who have made good choices too. If you were reading the newspaper about 4,000 years ago, you probably would have seen this headline about Moses: “Humble-Hebrew-Heeds-Bush; Escorts-Exiles-Out-Of-Egypt.”⁹ Or how about the “Babylonian Post’s” story about a Judeah exile who refused to abandon his faith: “Daniel-Defies-the-Deities-of-Darias; Dodges-Death-in-Lion’s-Den.”¹⁰
You can also be inspired by the archived story of Ester who laid her life on the line for her people: “Hebrew-Girl-Wins-Beauty-Contest; Saves-Nation.”¹¹
Perhaps the most striking example of a “good” choice is illustrated by Jesus’ selection of Paul. Shortly after the earthly ministry of Jesus was completed, a reporter for the “Herod Herald” penned this story about Paul’s conversation:
“Devout-Jew-Cannot-See-Until-He’s-Blinded.”¹²
Good news and good examples are there; sometimes you just have to dig a little to find them.
And then…there’s me.
I have my own personal assortment of bad choices that I’ve made over the years. James 1:14 says, “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires”…and indeed, I was no exception. On the surface I probably looked okay…but underneath?
I knew the difference between right and wrong and I usually chose “wrong” because it was fun. I was a sly one too. I did my best to make sure no one ever knew the real me. I forged my report card for my entire freshman year of high school. Of course, it didn’t do much good, I got caught and had to go to summer school anyway. I was the guy who would throw glazed jelly doughnuts in dark crowded theaters. I “once” stuffed my mouth with a banana/oreo cookie combination, chewed it into a nice thick slurry and then “sneezed” it into the locker of someone who displeased me. I was the kid who would sit in class and fart, then get it blamed on the poor kid sitting next to me. He couldn’t defend himself because he didn’t speak enough English.
As I got older, I MAY have matured a little bit, but I continued to SPEND my time and energy on pleasing me. I had no regard for others. I thought, “No one will ever know” and “I’m not REALLY hurting anybody.”
Then one day my bill came due. The “apple” I had chosen landed me in prison. Sadly though, the high price for my selfishness and sin was mostly paid, not by me, but by my family.
Sin can have lots of collateral damage.
Fortunately, there is some good advice for us concerning what we should be choosing to purchase. Proverbs 23:23 tells us to buy truth, wisdom, instruction and understanding.
It’s also interesting to note, as far as “purchasing” goes, that we ourselves were a product on the open market at one point. We do not belong to ourselves. We were purchased with a price by God.¹³
When God purchased us, I guarantee you he was not distracted by all of the traps that we as humans fall into. God was not being led astray by a sinful flesh. He was, decidedly, not being misled by asymmetric dominance and he was also certainly not being deceived by some slippery sign guy.
So…having said that, you may still be wondering how a particular ex-sign-guy (yours truly) solved the “Liquidation Sale” banner problem.
Well, the brilliance of the solution rested in it’s simplicity. It’s important to remember the banner covered an area of about two hundred square feet. As big as it was, there was some extra space around the edges that would prove useful. In my shop I created a relatively small decal, perhaps 12" in diameter (about 1/2 of one percent of the total banner size) that simply stated:
“Help-Prevent-A”
Then at the site I got my ladder out, climbed up and stuck the, rather subtle, decal onto the upper left hand corner of the banner.
After that, I dusted my hands and went home. I’m here to tell you: Be weary of what the world has to offer and don’t forget to read the fine print.
- Jeff Stibel Columnist USA Today, “Your brain gets you to buy stuff you don’t want” August 22, 2018
- 2 Sam 11
- Gen 37:12–36
- Book of Jonah
- Jud 15:1–8
- Jud 16
- Mk 14:45
- Mt 27:5 and Acts 1:18
- Ex 3–4:17
- Dn 6:1–24
- Book of Ester
- Acts 9:1–9
- 1 Cor 6:19
