Walking in the city (i.e. Philadelphia, not the City, which of course would be New York) I saw a man selling t-shirts and Santa hats on the corner.
Like all street vendors he had a “call”. You know what I’m talking about: he yelled out to no one in particular about his products.
“We’ve got Sixers t-shirts! We’ve got Eagles t-shirts! We’ve got Eagles Santa hats, which are only 6 bucks!”
“We”? Who is this “we”? Now, I’ve heard of the “royal we”, but not the “street vendor we”. The “street vendor wee wee” is a whole ‘nother Thought (On Pee-Stained Streets). What was this guy talking about?
The basic question which this man’s yelling raised was why he would say “we” when “I” would have worked just as well and been more accurate.
Was it because he was actually royalty? Was it because really “we” do all have Sixers t-shirts, Eagles t-shirts and Eagles Santa hats, and we just don’t know it yet? Was it a commentary on our oneness as humans?
In the end, I figured that he was probably trying to instill consumer confidence by suggesting that he was not alone in this sales operation. He had a corporate headquarters, customer service department, hundreds of employees. “We” was a well-oiled machine here to provide you with high-quality merchandise. This man was obviously at the head of a vast corporate infrastructure designed to satisfy me, the consumer.
And that it did ’cause look damn good in my Eagles Santa hat…