So. My dear friend Alison sends me a text/picture message the other day. She stopped at Shaws after work to pick up food for her family to eat. Who knows what else she was there to purchase... knowing Alison, it could have been a number of things I could make fun of her for, like peanut butter, but I digress.
So. The text message appears first, followed by an image. The text reads: "have you ever seen bacon displayed with the produce?", then I get a rather blurry picture of what looks like bacon, sitting next to a pile of lettuce. Mmmmmmmmkay.
So. I decide that I must see this amazing combonation for myself. A few days later (it was a Friday, not a Wednesday, because everyone knows that Wednesday is code for *back in the day*) I ventured into Shaws, ready to procure some dinner fixings for my little family.
So. Sure enough, there was the bacon-loves-lettuce display.
So. What Alison neglected to observe that it wasn't just a bacon-on-lettuce thing that Shaws had going on.
It was a wholoe freaking BLT section.
PURE.GENIUS.
Let me take you on a little photographic journey... At the left of the picture is a rack of white bread. Generic, Shaw's brand white bread. The kind that everyone tried to convince you used sawdust for a filler when you were in the fourth grade (don't try to tell me that only happened to me, I believe it was a school-wide epidemic... everyone knew it was true...).
Anyway. To the right of the bread are two rows of Iceberg Lettuce, between which are gently and lovingly nestled packages of salty and delicious bacon. Well, there was reduced-sodium bacon, too, but everyone knows it's not nearly as delicious... so we'll forget it was there. Directly beneath the bacon is a nice little box o' tomatoes, and under that, mayonnaise.
Now, anyone who knows me at all knows I would rather lick the lint from between my toes that put mayonnaise on a sandwich. Or anything else, for that matter (except tuna sandwiches, which breaks BOTH my no-mayo AND no-seafood rules, but that's material to discuss another day).
The icing on the cake (or BLT, if you like that sort of thing)... check out the very top of the picture. Yep, right there, on top of the bacon. Toasters. Freaking toasters. And they were on SALE! Shaws thought of everything!!!!
So. Did this brilliant marketing scheme work? You betcha. My family and I enjoyed delicious BLTs for dinner that night. Except I got the good bread, and skipped the mayo (we already had some) and the toaster (because we have a fabulous one at home). I also added some freshly sliced cheddar cheese to the mix... and life was good. And bacon-y.