A Tall Tale

 

Milton Flowery-Underpants was a tall man. Taller than the average tall man. Tall men are usually 5 feet 11 inches, or 6 feet tall or more so. I never knew how tall Milton Flowery-Underpants was because he measured himself in metres.

He was born Milton Flowery but put on the Underpants when he got married to please his wife.

That day in his office he paced up and down in front of his desk whilst I sat not a distance away awaiting his instructions. Moments later he began to speak.

"I cannot understand why sales are down," he said, "research says the public think our product is expensive. But it isn't considering the high quality ingredients therein!"

I picked up the tin of dog food and read the ingredients. I noticed that caviar and saffron were not amongst them. It was the usual type of ingredients you'd expect in a tin of dog food. Cereals, fat, meat derivatives, blah blah blah ....

"Perhaps we should spell out in percentage terms what the ingredients in the tin are and their cost," he continued, "cereal products 40%, fat 24%, meat derivatives 12% and so on ..."

"It's not very clever to tell your customers you're basically selling them third rate cereals," I thought but said nothing. 64% of the product is a mixture of boiled wheat and rice mixed with fat.

"Or perhaps we could also print another list," he declared, "spelling out how the overall price is reached. Ingredients cost 10%, production 22%, transport 23%, advertising 40% and so on ..."   

"That's not clever either," I thought but remained silent, "basically we are spending 40% of the product cost on advertising cheap ingredients".

He looked at me and continued pacing up and down. He knew from past experience that when I did not speak it was because I did not agree with him. 

"Well ... what do you think?" he said, "we could tell them that the product is quality tested by humans. Remember that chap ... what was his name? Oh yes ... Flea-Ridden Fido ... he used to taste every batch of dog food before it was put in the tins!"

"I remember he ended up in the Emergency Room at the hospital," I mumbled.

"Oh yes ..." Milton said, "I recall he developed an unfortunate habit. He stepped off a curb to sniff a poodle's butt and a car hit him!"