P&G Beats Estimates As Americans Reaffirm Commitment To Being Broke But Extremely Clean

CINCINNATI—Procter & Gamble reported quarterly results that topped Wall Street’s expectations, as American households facing higher fuel and food costs made the difficult but principled decision to be broke and smell incredible.

“The consumer is stretched, but the consumer is not willing to be stretched and also smell like a gym bag,” said Wendell Moritz, a consumer analyst at Halvorsen Pike who has never been seen without a lint roller. “You can cancel streaming. You can skip the restaurant. But you will pry the premium detergent from the cold, fragrant hands of the American family.”

Sales rose 4% to roughly $23.3 billion, and volumes in the home-care business climbed more than 4%, a performance economists attribute to a ‘bifurcated economy’ in which half the country buys premium hair care and the other half watches them do it in grocery-store mirrors.

Oil, again

The company did warn that higher commodity, energy and freight costs would take a bigger bite out of profit this year, a phenomenon analysts described as ‘the barrel of oil hiding inside every bottle of dish soap, waiting.’

“People will give up nearly anything. They will not give up the little scent beads.”

At press time, a Columbus family of four had canceled its internet service in order to afford fabric softener, explaining that they would rather be unreachable than crunchy.