Shades of Grey

Just for the purposes of illustration, we need you to imagine something that you’re really into that’s also kind of pretentious. It’s probably something you eat or drink—think…liquor or wine or sushi or fancy coffee.

Now imagine the distillery or coffee shop or stern old man who has dedicated his life to perfecting uramaki. But imagine someone involved fucking up, just a little bit.

Maybe your “seven times” distilled vodka only gets run through the thing six times. Perhaps the coffee roaster allowed the beans to reach 255 degrees Celsius instead of topping off at the optimal 250. Or the old sushi man sneezes in the rice or whatever.

Now, in theory, the final product would be compromised in some way. The whole reason you’re willing to overpay for this crap is the sheer artisan perfection of it all. Anything less would be…swill. Crap. Garbage. Fast food at best.

But who are we kidding? Unless you’re among the absolute elite in terms of appreciation for your chosen passion, you probably wouldn’t notice a damn thing if the caterer dropped your special bottle of wine and filled your glass from something available at the gas station up the street. Sushi snot tastes like nothing in particular, provided you’re keeping it to relatively modest quantities. And your really good coffee? We can tell the difference between instant and the real stuff, but that’s about as far as it goes.

Which brings us to…towels. Or, more specifically, towel colors.

Because today’s deal isn’t such a deal because they messed up the towels and the pattern is crooked or they’re all just ever-so-slightly shaped like a rhombus. No, they just fucked up the grey.

It’d be like if you went to Home Depot and looked at the 90 shades of grey they have on the paint chip wall and instead of Melancholy Oyster you got Evening Mist. And sure, maybe when selecting paint you could find yourself hung up on the distinction, but in today’s example they just missed the mark slightly on the desired grey.

Except rather than admitting to themselves that nobody cares, they act like a snobby barista who insists the whole batch of Breakfast Blend needs to get flushed down the toilet because the pH level ventured one or two clicks past optimal.

Get over yourselves, towel-manufacturing nerds.

Nobody actually cares and your customers probably aren’t the elite distinguishers of grey you think they are.

Well, we know OUR customers, and you guys understand how to score big on a towel deal based on nonsensical retail dynamics.

Go get ‘em, everyone. We promise that the grey is sufficiently grey.