Some people are too stupid to breathe without being reminded.
On Friday, I pulled off the road into a convenience store to get myself a bottle of water. The water was on sale, 2 for $1.00. Not being that thirsty, I picked up one.
The cashier told me that, because I wasn’t getting two, I would need to pay the regular price. I said fine, figuring it would be something like 60 or 70 cents.
She rang me up for $1.19.
I don’t know, perhaps she felt that people weren’t drinking enough bottled water. Perhaps she believed that we don’t have quite enough litter and garbage.
Perhaps she just didn’t have a lick of sense in her body.
I informed her that, if she was going to charge me more for one than for two bottles, I would indeed purchase the second bottle … and empty it on her counter.
My father buys detergent for barn’s pipeline system in 20 gallon, non-returnable, non-recyclable, white plastic jugs. During the spring of 1999 he piled up quite a few of them and sold them as “Y2K Water Storage Devices” at my sister and brother-in-law’s annual garage sale for $10 a piece or $25 a pair.
Ooh, ooh, was this the 7-11 in Kirkland, WA? Could have been the same drone who charged me for two coffees when I got a brew and an enpty cup to prevent hand scald syndrome(this was before the advent of the Little Cardboard Sleeve). Why?
“well, you have two cups!”
Hey, charge me a quarter, fine. but noooooo. So I left the cup and took a handful of napkins instead.
Uh, why is it necessarily the cashier’s fault? I may be wrong, but I’d venture to guess she didn’t have anything to do with the pricing or store policy.
Maybe “convenience stores” have different policies, but every time I’ve bought something from my local Jewel’s or Dominick’s that was priced at “X for” a given price each item rang up on the register at the listed price divided by X. For example, I just bought 6 cans of Jewel brand vegetables priced at 5/$2.00; each can rang up at $0.40 each. If I bought one item priced at 3/$1.00 it rang up at $0.34, and a second and third rang up at $0.33 each, which seems reasonable to me. I never heard of charging full price just because you didn’t buy the exact quantity specified by the sale price.
I’m sure the clerk doesn’t have anything to do with the policy. Most registers do everything automatically now. Some will ring up single two-for-one items as half priced. Others will require that there actually be two items scanned in before it will give the discount. The clerk does have some leeway (which allowed her to do what she did) but everytime she does something like that, the register records it and theres a good chance the manager will ask her “Why were you opening the drawer without selling something at three fifteen yesterday?” and barely believer her when she is telling the truth (or scold her for giving the refund that she did give).
Clerks get no mercy. Everything they can and cannot do is determined by the computer and the computer records their every move.
Well, I live in California. My water is fabulous. But then again, the economy of my county could probably crush most countries. Things are nice in silicon valley. Or were a few years ago. My levit-town-inspired house sells for over a million, so I can’t complain. I perfer the sweet nectar of soda though.
I’m just gonna come out and admit that until recently, I always assumed that you had to buy the amount specified in order to receive the discount. “Two boxes of Kellog cereal for $5.00” meant that one box would be more than $2.50. To my ignorant and careless consumer brain, that is.
And then I watched the display at the local grocery store and realized that the first box of cereal rings up at $2.50 even if it’s several items away from its brethren. Duh.
The only thing that makes me feel better is that Mr. Levins interned at Wal-Mart in college for a semester, and just to prove a point to his supervisor, gathered up loads of regularly-priced merchandise, and put it in baskets in the “action aisle” by the registers.
People sifted through it and snapped it up like it was on 80% clearance. Even though there was no sale sign, and no red tag on any of it. No one ever even bothered to ask or check to see if it was at a reduced price.
So I’m not the only moron. sob
Now I proudly by just the one box of cereal. But I still don’t feel any smarter now that I figured out I’m a gullible moron.
