I Learned A New Retailing Term The Other Day...

[David in Seattle]

I was in a grocery store the other day, a bit like a locally owned, slightly down-market Whole Foods, and I was looking for some chicken breasts they had on sale (What else? The BAGUETTES, maybe?!?). Couldn't find them. So I asked the kid stocking freeze dried Haricot Verts (hey, I said it was boutique-y) over on Aisle 5 where they might be. Without looking up, he gestured toward the back of the store, vaguely in the direction of the meat department (soooo helpful) and said, "They're back there in the coffin case". Uhhh, the COFFIN case??? Apparently that's what it's called. And to my surprise, the name does not derive from the fact that it's brimming with dismembered corpses (what?!? I said it was the MEAT department) but rather from the fact that it's horizontal and rectangular. You know, like a COFFIN? I told him they need to start including these terms-of-art in their advertising. Wouldn't YOU be more likely to buy that fresh liver it the ad included the phrase "Fresh from the Coffin Case!!!"???

True story.