A walk through your local shopping centre will probably find you experiencing the same VERY RED SALE advert attack i had in Knysna Mall.

RED SALE ATTACK

Once upon a time, RED meant something reasonable like: “Don’t drive through the intersection lest you be in an accident that kills your child.”; the soccer player sliding to kick an ankle so successfully he gets red-carded; an angry bull, an animal-hating dancer and a red flag hanging out together in pagan Spain; Jack Bauer having only 24hrs to stop the terrorists from pushing the nuclear bomb’s red button; your understanding nod why Tobasco is red.

In logical situations, RED is meaningfully scary, meaning “Stop”, “Get Out”, “Charge”, “Blow up”, “Eina” or ‘I’m not pregnant!” You don’t want to fuck with RED-

– except when Markhams, Woolworths, Edgars, Foshini and every other major chain store wants you to STOP and then CHARGE! Maybe shopping’s most like the bullfighting, the red posters ensuring that no one sees your credit card bleeding in-store.

MAKE SHOPPING HAPPINESS

South Africa would be far more sane and women en masse far happier if South Africa’s major stores just lowered their prices a bit the whole year round. No more red, just happy colours telling loyal shoppers that they’re no longer going to kill them every damn holiday and then pretend that the price thereafter (the price it should be) is a sale.

Or they need to be red like Wimpy the whole year round.