Cheap Wordplay

Periodically, with my love of words, I like to write about words that have either changed meaning or lost their meaning in our society. For instance, some years ago, I wrote about the word “extreme”, which is so overused in our culture to mean absolutely nothing. Everything is “extreme”. Therefore, according to the rules of logic, nothing is.

The word that I would like to tackle today is “cheap”. A customer at my day job referred to some product or other that we were carrying as “cheap”, and I, as I always do, said “We use the term “inexpensive”, sir... we don't sell “cheap”.” Which is true. The customer got mad at me, unfortunately, but let's face it... cheap is a loaded word. If it EVER meant “inexpensive”, then it hasn't for as long as I can remember. I never heard my dad refer to anything of quality as “cheap”. The only time that I ever heard him use the word to my recollection, it was always followed by “piece of shit”. He wasn't a man to spend extra money on style, but he would for substance.

Which makes me think of another point. If you look at the price of a product on the shelf and think “Wow, that's really cheap”, you're probably right. Talk to the store clerks and, if you have to, the manager, and if they can't justify an amazingly low price to you, don't buy the product. Or, if you do, don't bitch when it turns out to be a cheap piece of... well... you know.

As a for instance... I moved recently. Because I basically put what I couldn't fit into my car but didn't want to part with (memorabilia, my dragon collection, stuff that my kids made when they were little) into storage, crammed what I could into my car and sold the rest, I'm pretty much starting over with stuff. One of the things that I had to buy when I got here was a microwave. (Well, let's face it. I didn't HAVE to buy one, but I sure wanted one.) So I set out, expecting to get something... yes... you know it... CHEAP for under $50. Some cheap POS that I could get my fifty bucks worth out of before it blew up. I came across a store that we didn't have up north called “Ultimate Electronics”, and thought well, if they're like Fry's, then they will have microwaves and decent prices.

First thing that I see when I walk through the door? Hotpoint microwaves for $19.95. I was reassured that they were Hotpoint, a brand that I'm familiar with and not “Lucky Dragon” or something. So I asked the clerk about the deal. He said that they were actually a model from two generations ago that someone at Hotpoint had discovered mouldering away in a warehouse somewhere, and offered to Ultimate at a killer deal just to clear up the space.

See how that works? Now, had it been a “Lucky Dragon” microwave (not a real brand, as far as I know) for $19.95, I would have been immediately suspicious. Then, had I asked the clerk why they were such a screamin deal and he said “Oh, I don't know. That's just the price that they sell at.” Then the first thought through my brain would be “cheap”. The second would be “Piece of shit”. The third would be “I'm not buying this.”

So, from this day forward, can we please leave “cheap” to mean only an inexpensive product of dubious quality, and not use it to describe a low price? Because, let's face it, when you HEAR the word “cheap”, what do you think? Junk, right? CHEAP PIECE OF SHIT, yeah?

Okay.

Peace.

Rev. Randal