This little gem appeared on my Twitter feed the other day
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How awfully kind of those nice chaps and lady chaps at Mastercard (an organisation with which I currently do no business whatsoever). Let us examine the two elements of this, thankfully short, exhortation.
However you spend each day with Debit Mastercard - what a delightfully laissez-faire, mellow and friendly attitude. We don't care what you do with our card, they seem to be saying, you can stuff it in your pocket or use it to sculpt pottery1. Perhaps grip it tightly between two knuckles to add extra bite to your forehand jab when street-fighting, or try flicking it sideways and see if you can decapitate a pigeon, Oddjob-style. It's entirely up to you.
Note the intrusion of the word "day". I mean, I have credit cards and use them now and then but I don't exactly spend the day with them. I have my life to lead and doubtless they do their own, plastic2, thing, perhaps being condescending to my loyalty cards whilst having a mutually respectful relationship with my driving licence. I don't wake up and think "It's a lovely day, how shall I make best of it?, I know, I'll go out with the cards, it'll be such fun". If I need a credit or debit card, I extract it grudgingly from my wallet, plonk it on the reader and then put it away before it starts having ideas about the two of us going for a drink and having a really deep and stimulating conversation.
Anyway, the "however" makes the first phrase somewhat otiose anyway, because clearly it doesn't matter what I and the cards actually get up to. So onto the meat of the gist.
"Spend it doing what matters most to you". Yes. Sure. I wasn't going to. I thought I would do a few things that really are utterly repugnant, then some irrelevant stuff and finally maybe ask around on social media for ideas about what matters most to others. But Mastercard have cut clear through the fog and put a glaring searchlight on the crux. I should do what matters to me.
I really don't know what the people3 who compose these homilies do all day. They obviously don't inhabit the world that you and I do. They must actually think that, unless they give some instruction in how to live, we would make a hash of it. I have news for them. I shall do what matters most to me and and I shall do it whether they tell me or not. Not only that, I shall do it without spending a single instant of my day with my Debit Mastercard, because I don't have one and I am certainly not going to apply for one, because then I would be doing something that doesn't matter most to me.
The end result of this tweet has been to irritate me and to antagonise me against the brand of Mastercard. Well done, guys. You only had one job and you blew it.
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Footnotes
1. This is a real thing, I went on a pottery course years ago and cards were highly recommended for moulding wet clay.
2. I so wanted to use the word "plasticky" here but it doesn't seem to exist.
3. I assume our old friend Taz has got himself another summer internship
