All other great marketing scams descend linearly in some manner directly from NDC.

From every marketing standpoint non-dairy creamer makes sense. From the consumer' standpoint it is a big fake out but since the consumer is paying the tab he can do what he likes. Did anyone say visualized fake out?

The premise is many fat folks like to put fatty cream in their coffee or tea or even drink it straight up in the bathroom.

Some water it down and call it half and half so they will feel half as guilty when they guzzle it. But they aren't fooling themselves and therein resides the problem.

To confuse everyone the experts call it lactose intolerant but it still means one's insides not being able to handle cow products.

As a community service and kind gesture to humanity, these savvy marketers want to save the allergic, guilty and obese from the evils of lactose intolerant consumption.

In other words, they saw a market and jumped right in.

Think of these dynamics and do a mental role play: one coffee or tea lover can't use cream because they are hypersensitive to dairy products or weigh 480 pounds or most likely both.

This depressed and distraught individual takes a small container of non-dairy creamer and picks it up examining it carefully. Actually it could be the half gallon size since even the big cartons look alike.

What, you didn't know you could buy a half gallon economy carton of NDC? And just what rock have you been living under all this time?

Visualize this happening in a restaurant while also looking wistfully at a bowl of those little tiny containers marked 'Half n' Half' and not being able to participate so to speak.

Envision that the doctor told you the day before that one more half and half and you would start to grow an udder. Now visualize NDC.

NDC looks and feels just the same. It's very important to pass that look and feel test so that a bona fide marketing coup is possible.

Without that look and feel there is little credibility; consumers aren't that stupid, right? Pass the look and feel test and the marketing possibilities become very interesting.

Let's not even get into the saccharin analogy and consider that all those NDC chemicals might indeed cause metabolic disturbances with a subsequent weight gain.

For the self esteem of millions it is best not to mention that consuming NDC actually might cause weight gain by causing trauma to the gastrointestinal tract.

The really important point is that non-dairy creamer does not taste or smell like cream but folks pour it in their cups anyway...chemicals and all. Why? Let's look at the real reasons.

We use NDC because some marketer says it looks like cream if we visualize it while stirring our coffee; go ahead, be bold and visualize it turning white. And it actually does, or at least sort of does.

With correct envisioning we can see we have something in our coffee and the odds are it has to be cream, right?

Of course, what else could it be? By using the principles of envisioning and visualization and marketing scam theory we have very adroitly just faked ourselves out. Congratulations!

Even if you happen to be one of those literalists that see everything as it is you can trick your auto-suggestion cognition into actually knowing it is not cream but think you're happy about it anyway! The human mind is a very powerful thing.

In the end we all must acknowledge the real service contribution NDC makes to modern society; we need all the help we can get.

So the next time you have coffee visualize yourself pouring non-dairy creamer chemicals into your cup. Visualize pouring some chemicals that may in fact be dairy derivatives causing irreversible damage to your metabolism resulting in sudden weight gain.

The marketers and engineers are certainly planning it that way and they are working around the clock to develop new and innovative products like NDC that further allow you to fool yourself. You know the ancient Chinese saying; there is no fool like one who fools himself.

So why do they do it? They do it because they can just as you do it because you can. Instead of being a real man or woman and drinking your coffee black you have to dump stuff in and make it appear to be something it isn't.

But like the ancient Chinese also said, once a fool always a fool.