While watching Seven’s Summer of Ads on TV it was easy, from time to time, to let the tennis distract you from the advertisements. One important headline announced: Bunnings Warehouse: Lowest Prices are just the Beginning. Over this summer and many before it, I heard these words so often I managed to commit them to memory.

In the Bunnings ads one ordinary, unglamorous Australian after another advises the viewer about this lawn trimmer, that bathroom spotlight, this house paint, all at bargain prices. After delivering this helpful information my aproned fellow Australian assures the nation Lowest Prices are just the Beginning.

I enjoy these ads. They suggest ordinary people (with the exception of the writer) can do it themselves. An empowering message, edifying. But, after decades of just the beginning an uneasy feeling has grown. I want to know: What is the middle? Why haven’t Bunnings told us? Surely they must know. Unless… unless  there isn’t a middle; unless (terrifying thought) Bunnings knows but isn’t saying. What if there is no middle? Can it be that Lowest Prices are just the Beginning and the End is Nigh?