Nickelback

Here is a fun little commercial ditty we hear on TV and radio in The Prude’s neck of the woods.

‘Piggly Wiggly

Shop the Pig!’

You start singing somewhere around the first ‘do’ in ‘Do, a dear’ and work your way up the scale until you crescendo by belting out ‘SHOP THE PIG!’

The Pig is a grocery store beloved by small town folks.

The Pig is clean.

It has great deals on cereal.

It gives us gas points, and it is never never never ever crowded.

The Pig offers paper or plastic bags but they encourage us all to ‘go green’ and use cloth bags.

The Prude has been known to leave a shopping cart full of groceries tucked in by the cards and candles to dash from the store and grab her cloth bags from the car where she forgot them.

The Prude does love the environment. But that isn’t what drives her.

It is love of nickels.

Yes, The Pig gives a nickel for every cloth bag used.

If Cashier forgets The Prude’s nickel she fidgets and hums and looks pointedly at the little nickel jar hoping Cashier will remember. If that doesn’t work The Prude holds out her hand, palm up, and says, “Nickels please?”

Just like that. With no shame.

Here is the vast majority of the nickels she has earned since the beginning of the year. She could add them up and figure out what could be purchased with them.

Instead she chooses, ala Scrooge McDuck, to gloat over them.

The day may come when The Prude needs to spend her treasures.

Worse yet, The Pig may quit offering them.

If that happens, the ditty will sound more like a dirge.