"What I am really buying is a bunch of bagged air."

   "What I am really buying is a bunch of bagged air."
This comment came out of my mouth as I was in the check out line at the grocery store.  The clerk looked at me as if I was crazy.
We buy bottled water right?
So then why not bagged air?
Here is how I came to that conclusion.
First lets start with the reason I was at the market.
We as a family do road trips.
Anytime the road trip consists of 120 minutes worth of driving or more I like to be prepared.
No time to stop unless for restroom reasons.
So what do I buy? I buy snacks.
Snacks that are in bags.
Especially the salty kind.
Individual bags are smaller... yes.
The point is you don’t open the big bag and then it goes stale.
These bags are filled with chips, pretzels, popcorn, cheetos, and goldfish.
The bags are light and airy yet seem substantial in size.
When you open them..poof it does feel as if they forgot to fill them fully?
This is perfected marketing as it is the packaging you buy too.
Sure I could buy the large bags of econo store brand chips and carefully re-bag everything into clear plastic sandwich bags.
But whats the point in that?
Store brand snacks do not taste the same as the name brands.
The lady in the aisle of snacks today would have agreed with me totally because she looked at all the chips and gave a glare at her husband and said,
“Don’t even think think we are buying those store-brand chips because they don’t taste the same dammit”.
Maybe we just are conditioned to liking what we like and brands are what we remember as a nostalgia.
I know that I’ll continue buying the snack brands of my choice, even if there is a bunch of bagged air and all.