Wow! 99cents!

Wow! 49 cents!

Yehoooo!

I'm sorry to break your bubble but, ehhhh, the 49 cents payment is not inclusive of the airports' taxes. So in a nutshell, it'll probably cost a hundred something dollars.

Some of you may think this kind of advertisment is viable, totally acceptable but think again. Is it really? You'll see advertisments on newspapers on how AirAsia offers a ticket that costs less than a ringgit and thought to yourself "Wow, with AirAsia, now anyone can fly!" but I can guess that a part of you are thinking "Are they pulling my legs? Airport tax lagi, the other airport tax at the other country lagi, and yea, the trip to LCCT will already cost me nine ringgit."

With their wholesome, mighty white and red advertisement, who would've thought anyone would be boringly waiting for their flight, sleeping in the surau, sleeping on their trolleys, on the floor... At this rate, one would think that AirAsia could use some public beds in LCCT. Sure, this will arouse some inquiries from some Islamic organizations, but hell yea, we need beds in 'ere! After 5 hours and 25 minutes of delay, the plane will arrive, all the red-black shirt wearing indian workers will stand by the gates. And voila. We're getting in the plane! 5 hours and 55 minutes later, TakeOff. Smart timing, considering that delaying any flight exceeding 6 hours will cause the airline company to compensate our tickets.

In the plane, while a gum-chewing crew invades the entire lane with her gigantic lower body(unlike the cabin crew as seen on ads), I'll ensure myself that all is well. I deserve a 5 hours and 55 minutes delay because I paid less. Wonderful. Everything is wonderful. After 5 hours of waiting, I was hungry like the fury of hell. I looked at the airline menu and quickly shoved it in the chair pocket. Nasi Lemak = RM9. Bloody hell.

"Now anyone can eat?"

There is an art of consumerism. To deceive people with the truth, by hiding the product's weaknesses. Talking about eating, take McDonald's for example:

A quarter pounder is a thing of beauty on the drive-thru ad. The only problem is it doesn't stay that way after purchasing it.

We can't blame McDonald's though. In their advertisements all over the world, they'd already put on a disclaimer. That smaller-than-flea disclaimer on their ads. Anyone with supervision could've spotted it.

And remember the OR burger incident? Someone had sued KFC for being deceitful when describing the size of the relatively small OR burger. KFC admitted but, but they exegerated the size of the OR burger not by making it bigger but using a small man to eat it inside a small car. Surely, the OR burger's size will appear similar to a quarter-pounder once shoved inside a small mouth.

The art of packaging is not only used by big companies but also applied in simple businesse; k lah, let's make an example out of local fruits:

In Pasar Malams, you could easily spot fruits in perfect condition on baskets with a price tag; RM5 sekilo. When you ask the pakcik for a kilo, he will shove his hands deep into the basket and fill half of the plastic bag with rotting fruits, the other half with the good ones lah.

And don't get me started on telco companies.

Prophet Muhammad walked by a market and stopped at a stall that sells wheat. The wheat seems to be in good condition and so the Prophet shoved his hand into the mound of wheat and took it out, only to see wet rotten wheat in his hands. He then said: "He who cheats us, doesn't belong to us."

As widespread as it is, cheating, no matter how you do it is wrong. It's just is. It'll cause multiple problems to consumers and....... let me put it simply, in a term anyone of all religion could understand:

With CHEATING, NOW ANYONE CAN GO TO HELL!

Yea, righteous!