I'm sure most of you have seen the news story about the cosmetics settlement resulting from a class action lawsuit. This is not the place I want to get into the details of the suit. If you are interested in the legalities, please visit www.cosmeticssettlement.com . For the purposes of this blog, I will attempt to put it in a nutshell.

A judgment stated that people who purchased cosmetics between 1994 and 2003 were entitled to recompense due to possible "price fixing" in the high end department store cosmetics business. The settlement provided free products, ONE per customer, on a first come, first serve basis at top retailers. The "give-away" began yesterday, Tuesday January 20, at store opening. Lines formed, "customers" had to sign their name to a legal document stating that they received their ONE item and move on. Wow, wow, wow! Was this a comedy in the making and keep reading for my cynical and comical thoughts.

Let me try and break out my thoughts into points, as they arrive in my brain, with no theme other than this was a farce!

1. Why in the world would giving free products away make anyone feel vindicated for alleged "price fixing" on cosmetic goods? First of all... these products have never gone on sale in the history of beauty sales nor will they ever! Why were not the bringers of the lawsuit more humanitarian in their requirements asking these top vendors to donate to a charity that could somehow be related to beauty like Locks of Love for cancer patients? Wouldn't that have been a better use of their money? If you don't think so... keep reading.
2. Working on the opening day of "trick or treat," I got the amazing inside view of this settlement. For the purpose of this blog and blogs here after, let us say that I work for a top department store named "Fancy Shmancy".
3. Doors opened at Fancy Shmancy at 10 AM with "customers" telepathically chanting "open open open" a la the Mervyns commercials and a line wrapping around the building.
4. Management manned the give away tables so that line specialists, such as myself, didn't need to be involved. No, we just ended up with imagined INFORMATION signs floating above our heads so people could ask us "where is the free... " and we could interrupt and point "over there."
5. It was obvious that none of these people in line were Fancy Shmancy customers. Somehow they had seen this on the internet or television and showed up bright and early for their "compensation." Funny thing is, I doubt many of these people were even in our country between 1994 and 2003. And this isn't a statement on immigration, so let's move on!
6. Not only did we have the foreign visitors but we had the young. Too young! We had 15 year olds in line, signing their name to a legal document in which you need to be 18. I wanted to say... "You were born in 1994! You were not buying Lancome!" We had one woman who grabbed a freebie for her six year old little boy. He should continue to look young in his anti-aging serum!
7. One of the laugh-out-loud moments was when two gentleman walked by my counter... well i should say, hobbled. Both looked like big beer and moonshine drinkers from the Ozarks and very jovial indeed! Both looked like they had leg ailments of some sort, or bunions perhaps, and one was using a wooden cane. They went directly to the compensation line so that they too could enjoy their mascara or Coco Mademoiselle body lotion. They must have decided however that they were entitled to skip the line all together. In the commotion, the novice managers who were manning the table at that moment didn't happen to notice two chubby males jump to the front and grab their products. The men proceeded to "hobble" in GREAT speed right out the men's fashion doors. I literally laughed up in the air amazed because I have never seen a man with a cane run so quick! (This is all in good fun people... lighten up!)
8. I was a little surprised that none of these people had any shame. As I saw tiny bags from other stores just like Fancy Shmancy, I realized.. THEY ARE MAKING A DAY OF IT! It didn't matter that they were signing a legal document. It didn't matter that it was ONE per customer and not at EVERY STORE! ONE, PERIOD! If I was trying to milk the system, I SURELY would have at least hid my bags from the other stores! Sheesh! Are these people rookies, or what???
9. Over time our more seasoned managers began to notice a few familiar faces. Faces that had already been through the line... a few times! One manager said to one trick-or-treator, "Hey! Don't you know you are signing a legal document? You have already been here... twice! Enough for you!" Way to go, boss.
10. Today was a new day. Only a couple of hours of trick-or-treating and our supply of 5,000 pieces was gone. Hooray! The constant questioning of "where do we go for..." and "while I'm here can I get free samples of, um, anything? a lot of them?" was finally over. I didn't anticipate however, that the news story seemed to just be breaking. So although there were signs EVERYWHERE posted that we were out of supplies, I had to spend the rest of the day saying, "No I'm sorry, we're out." What I really wanted to say was, "You should have been here first thing yesterday morning with the rest of the trick-or-treators, going through each line three times at each store and then buying yourself lunch to celebrate a job well done being greedy!"
11. To be honest, I don't care too much that it became trick-or-treat day. It was a quick way to get this over. I just feel bad for people who really were customers, who probably did make purchases during 1994 and 2003 and were just deciding today maybe they should come visit a Fancy Shmancy near them. Too late!

On a serious note, this was an interesting day to begin this give-away settlement. With Obama's incredible speech and his ideals of giving back, it seemed quite the paradox. I didn't see much personal giving. I saw a lot of greed and entitlement. I don't blame some of the folks. I doubt many had much money and this might be one of the nicest products they ever have. However could they have shared with others? And, that wasn't the point of the settlement anyway and once again I wonder why wasn't the money given to a worth while charity to really help the poor or hurting or sick?

Well that is the Insider's take on the big news worthy cosmetics settlement! Feeling a little like Andy Rooney with my cynicism, I sign off with a big watch ticking a la 60 minutes. Good night! :)