Recently I was in an electronics store, trying to buy a telephone that was just a telephone. I did not want the conference-call feature, the intercom feature, the programmable memory feature, the coffee-making feature, or the feature (this is a new one) that displays the exact current latitude and longitude of Rep. Gary Condit. All I wanted was the feature that lets you talk to the person on the other end.
After much searching, I found a phone — probably manufactured during the Spanish-American War — that hardly did anything. ("Hardly Does Anything!" would be an excellent product slogan, if you ask me.) While I was looking at this phone, a previously invisible salesperson materialized next to me and said the words that I have come to detest more than any others in the English language except "prostate exam."
Those words are: "You definitely should get the service agreement."
In case you just got here from the Lost Continent of Atlantis, let me explain the service-agreement concept: When you buy a product, you pay extra money to the store, and the store gives you a piece of paper. This gives you, the consumer, the peace of mind that comes from knowing that if, for any reason, at any time, something goes wrong with your product, you will not be able to find the service agreement. Most likely you won't even remember you bought it. Your brain will be clogged with too much other information, such as how to work the intercom feature.
Stores LOVE service agreements, for the same reason you'd love to have money fall on you from the sky. As a result, when you buy a product today, you get this bizarre multiple-personality sales pitch, because at the same time that the salesperson is telling you how swell the product is, he's suggesting it will need a LOT of service:
SALESPERSON: . . . so this is an excellent product. Totally reliable.
YOU: I'll take it!
SALESPERSON: It's going to break.
YOU: What?
SALESPERSON: There's this thing inside? The confabulator? You're lucky if that baby lasts you a week.
YOU: So you're saying it's NOT a good product?
SALESPERSON: No! It's top of the line! Totally dependable!
YOU: Well, OK, then, I guess I'll . . .
SALESPERSON: Of course if the refrenestator module blows, you're looking at a $263,000 repair, plus parts and labor. One customer had to sell a lung.
In some stores, selling you a product seems to be merely an excuse to sell you the service agreement. Several months ago, my wife and I were shopping for a computer, and a salesperson attached himself to us, lamprey-like. His sole professional contribution was to inform us, no matter which computer we looked at, that we would definitely want the service agreement. At one point he took me aside and told me, Man to Man, that we especially needed the service agreement, because — this is a direct quote — "You know how women can be with computers."
We did not get that service agreement. Nor did I get the service agreement for the cheap telephone that hardly did anything. In each case, after I said "no" for maybe the fifth time, the salesperson backed slowly away, giving me a look of pity mixed with apprehension, as if the product, unprotected by a service agreement, was going to explode at any moment.
It's only a matter of time before we see stores that have no products at all, just empty aisles prowled by salespersons who glom onto you and relentlessly hector you until you buy a service agreement. Think of the profit margin.
In closing, let me stress that this column is in no way intended to be critical of the retail community, especially the many fine retailers who advertise in this newspaper. If you are such a retailer, and you are for any reason unhappy with anything I've said, simply write me a letter explaining the problem. I'll be happy to correct it!
Be sure to enclose your service agreement.
Dave Barry is a humor columnist for the Miami Herald. Write to him c/o The Miami Herald, One Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132.