Warming Up

Monday 12th May 2003

I was in a taxi driving up Chiswick High Road and we passed the VW garage. I was looking at the cars for sale on the forecourt and noticed that on each price tag, beneath the sum required to own the vehicle (averaging around about £12,000), was the single word “Affordable”
And I thought to myself “Well, that pretty much depends on who is looking at the car, doesn’t it?” Yes, if Richard Branson happened to pass then £12,000 probably wouldn’t be a stretch, but VW are making quite an assumption about most people’s incomes to think that kind of sum is something that is universally affordable.
Unless the sign has some kind of computer chip in it, with an iris scanner or something, which can register who is looking at the car, access their bank account and then display an accurate assessment of whether the prospective customer has a chance of owning that particular car. Maybe someone else would look at it and it would say, “A bit pricey for you, mate. Maybe if you sold one of your kidneys.”
If that is the case, then the signs were malfunctioning. I have just bought a house and so very little is affordable for me any more.
I wonder if the psychology works on anyone. They look at the car, look at the price and then see the word “Affordable” and think, “Oh look, it’s OK. It’s affordable. Even though I don’t actually have £12,000 I will buy it anyway.”
Maybe it works. From now on, I am going to walk around with a badge saying “sexually attractive” on it, just in case.