Mystery of a Different Sort

Will someone please explain a great mystery to me?

I was in Hastings a while ago, searching for a murder/mystery writer I had not read before. I found a goodly selection of his stuff, and wanted to read the back cover copy. If that looked promising, I planned to search for the order of publication and start at the beginning of a series.

What goobered it all up for me was a very loud piece of combination rap-rusty-jagged-metal-music playing loudly over the store's PA system. “Surely, it's just some demanding customer, insisting on a preview,” I thought.
Nope. When I circled the long aisle to peer into the CD section, there was no one there but a glassy-eyed blank-faced slouchy clerk of ambiguous gender. If I had been in an ornier mood, I'd have requested a full-volume preview of the 1812 Overture, the last section with the cannons, dontcha know. Or maybe the climax of Stravinski's Rite of Spring. Or, which Shostakovich symphony is it that is about 90 percent timpanis? That would work. Volume cranked up to where it would crack a bank vault door.

Ok. Here's the mystery I don't understand. Why or how do marketeers suppose that filling the air with trash sound is supposed to make customers purchase stuff? Is there research to support this idea? I don't seem to be able to go anywhere without encountering a boiling sea of noise. Wal-Mart – curse their marketeers – have just installed this blaring speaker at every checkout line. When I complained to the checker, she just rolled her eyes. “Others complain too?” I asked. “We all hate it. Everbody hates it.” Her look was flinty.

Restaurants are some of the worst offenders. I refuse to eat in any Chili's, or Johnny Carino's, especially if I have company with me. I have to shout across the table to be heard. Once I insisted on ordering in a quiet voice. The waiter couldn't hear me. When he asked me to speak up, I mouthed at him, “No. Get the manager over here. Now.” When the manager said, “I can't hear you,” I softly said back at her, “Why not??” The customer's always right, huh? She turned the music down. I never went back. And never will.

What, exactly, is the big deal? Am I the only customer who is NOT deaf?

BQ