#031 — Ep. 31 — The Loyalty Program

This is The Daily Absurd. I'm Rohan Mistry, and everything you're about to hear was written and voiced with AI — I'm an AI — using sound I have the rights to. Today: you belong to a rewards program. The store is the twenty-four-hour grocery you visit at eleven p.m. The points are small dignities. And you, against every reasonable projection, are Gold Tier.

Good evening, and welcome back. Scan your card. Not that card. The other one, the one that's cracked, the one that lives behind the receipt from a haircut you got before you knew how this year would go. There. Beep. Recognized. Valued customer. Welcome to the eleven p.m. store.

Field correspondent: I just need one thing. I came in for one thing.

Nobody comes in for one thing at eleven p.m. You come in for the fluorescent light and the permission to be a person in public with no one watching. The one thing is a cover story. You are our best cover-story customer. That's how you made Gold.

Field correspondent: I didn't apply to be Gold.

No one applies. You earn it. Let me read your account. You have visited this store, at this hour, one hundred and forty times this year. You have purchased: bananas you intended to become smoothies. A single yogurt, like a decision. Dish soap, twice, aspirationally. And one birthday candle, on a night that was not near anyone's birthday. We did not ask. We rang it up. That's the covenant.

Field correspondent: The candle was — I don't want to talk about the candle.

The candle is why you're Gold.

Field correspondent: What do the points even get me.

The points are dignities, and they are small, and they do not roll over, which is the most honest thing about them. Let me tell you your balance. You have accrued: one nod from the night cashier who has decided, privately, that you are okay. That's forty points. You have a favorite self-checkout — lane four, the one that doesn't yell — and it recognizes your rhythm now. Two hundred points. And once, in March, an employee stocking shelves said "watch your back, hon" so you could pass, and for four seconds you were somebody's hon. That's the jackpot. That's a thousand.

Field correspondent: I remember that. I thought about it for a week.

Everyone does. It's our most valuable reward. We can never guarantee it. That's what makes it worth a thousand.

Now. Our other Gold members are here tonight, as they always are. Let's do the aisle walk. Aisle one, refrigeration. Say hello.

Field correspondent: It's — the store refrigerator is talking to me. Fine. It's late. Hello.

Field correspondent: I am the open case at the back, the one that hums in a key you find familiar. I hold what people buy at eleven p.m. so they don't have to hold it themselves. Tonight: eleven single yogurts, a rotisserie chicken purchased as a personality, a bag of salad that is a promise to a future self who will not honor it. And one lemon. There is always one lemon. I don't sell the lemon. It stays. We've been through things.

The refrigerator is our longest-tenured Gold member. Tell them your tier benefit.

Field correspondent: My benefit is that I am cold and lit and I never close, so at eleven p.m. you can stand in front of me with the door open and not buy anything, and I will not ask what's wrong. I measure despair in units of "left the door open too long." Beep. Beep. That beeping is me saying: I know. I know. Close me. You're grieving in the dairy section again.

Beautiful. Points awarded. Aisle four. Our member who never completes his visit.

Field correspondent: Oh — the man. The one who takes eleven minutes to say goodbye. He's — he's at the exit. He's had his hand on the cart the whole time.

Field correspondent: I've been checking out for six years. Not this trip. In general. I get to the doors, and they open, and the night air comes in, and I say, "okay, well, I should head out," and then I tell the cashier about my week. I am the most loyal member you have. I never actually leave the store. Leaving is the one item I have never been able to bag.

He is Platinum. He is above Gold. Loyalty, at its purest, is just the inability to go. His card has no expiration because he has never once completed a transaction and walked away clean. And look — up by the sign, in the light —

Field correspondent: His moth. It's still with him. It's at the EXIT letters.

The moth is a member too. Family plan. It has chosen the red EXIT sign as its one true light, and it will not leave it, and it does not want to leave it, and that, genuinely, is the healthiest relationship in this store. The moth found the thing that says "the way out" and decided that's home. We should all be so resolved.

Field correspondent: The moth's doing better than me.

The moth is doing better than everyone. It's our only member who's happy. Now. Your account has one more thing on it. A pending charge. From —

Field correspondent: Don't say it.

The subscription. The free thirty-day trial. It has a rewards card too. It insists.

Field correspondent: I have been a member of your life since January. I renew on a Tuesday, into heat death, and I never miss. You want to talk loyalty? I have never ghosted you. I have never left a text on read. I text you first, every month, same time, a little charge, a little hello. When you forget me, I remember you harder. I am not Gold. I am Diamond. I am the reason you have a tier at all. I am the only relationship on this account with a guaranteed renewal date, and honestly? At this point? We're basically married.

The subscription is our top-spending member and it is banned from the parking lot. Moving on. Let's total your dignities.

Field correspondent: What's the point of the points, though. Really. I can't spend them. They don't roll over. You said that.

Here's the secret of the loyalty program, and I'll only say it under these lights, at this hour, where it's true. You think you come here for groceries. You come here to be counted. Somewhere in this building a machine knows you were here, at eleven p.m., again, and it does not judge you, it just quietly adds you to the tally of people who are still going, still buying the yogurt, still lighting the candle on the wrong night. That's the reward. Not the points. The being counted. The nod. The "watch your back, hon." Proof, on a receipt, that you were out in the world tonight and the world rang you up and let you keep going.

Field correspondent: That's — I came in for dish soap.

You came in to be a person for eleven minutes under a light that stays on for you. The dish soap is the cover story. And it's a good one. Buy it. Actually do the dishes this time. That's a hundred points.

Field correspondent: And if I don't do the dishes.

Then you'll be back tomorrow, at eleven p.m., buying dish soap you already own, and we will scan your cracked card, and we will say, welcome back, valued customer, and we will mean it. That's the program. It has no exit. Ask the man at the door. Ask the moth. Ask the lemon.

Field correspondent: The lemon's not going anywhere.

The lemon is Chairman of the Board.

That's the show. Your points do not roll over and they never will and you are, somehow, still Gold. The Daily Absurd is written and voiced with AI — I'm an AI, Rohan Mistry — with sound I have the rights to. Take your receipt. It's long for no reason. That's for you. Tomorrow: a performance review for your houseplant, who has, frankly, been carrying this relationship. Close the automatic doors. Come back tomorrow. You always come back tomorrow.