Insanity is going to the Dollar Store over and over again but expecting different results

The title of this blog essay is an edit on the old definition of insanity. It's attributed to Albert Einstein but its earliest emergence was 1981 in Narcotics Anonymous material.

So, insanely, I went to the Dollar store again on a Saturday. I had written last week in a piece titled "I went to the Dollar Store for TP and garbage bags, and forgot the bags",that I noticed there is often a higher price rung up at the register than was shown on the shelf. I know that food prices have been volatile for a few years now, due to unusual and severe weather, fluctuating fuel prices, and scarcity. I also know that one of the reasons the prices are lower at the Dollar stores is that there are fewer employees and quite often, I'm sure, they don't have time to keep up with price stickers that are increasing each week.

But I can't let the overcharge go, even it it's only a dime or so each time. I showed how the higher prices accumulate from the pocketbook over a year's time.

Now these, I'd pay $2.15 for!
photo credit:
Dee West (Formerly deedoucette)
via photopin
cc

This week it was busy as usual, even busier because there was a festival down the street and people were coming up to get drinks and snacks to listen to the music. I kept an eagle eye on the prices on their small screen they have at the checkout stand for the customer to swipe their card. It's a small screen and shows about four items at a time, and they click by fast. But I did spot one price difference of nearly a dollar. I bought chopped green olives for $1.35 shelf price, and they rang up at $2.15.

I asked, "Why did the olives ring up at $2.15?

The cashier peered into his larger monitor and said "They didn't ring up at $2.15. I see $1.00, .85, $1.69..." and he read off four or five prices of the last items scanned through.

I went "Huh, um, ok" and we continued.

I got to the car with my register tape receipt and I took a good look. And what did I see? "Olives = $2.15." I drove out the lot and shaking my head, decided not to let it go, I circled back and went back in with the olives and the tape.

I said, "Help me understand, I might be reading this wrong but I believe I see olives at $2.15 when the shelf price says it sells at $1.35."

He said "Oh, you meant THOSE olives. I thought you meant the other olives." (I had bought black olives too.)

I said, "Please restore the difference, if you would." It was 82 cents.

The lady behind me, who ironically was behind me at the register originally five minutes ago, had an item in her hand and she said, "That's why I'm here too. You have to watch every penny these days."

And olive the other customers shook their heads and went hmmm. Har har.

Insanity...I will still go to the Dollar store but I will change a variable. Never again on a Saturday. Let's see how that works.

I went to the Dollar Store for TP and garbage bags, and forgot the bags

If it's not on my list, it is not in my mind. Aggravating.

Saturdays at the Dollar Store aren't a great idea anyway. The lines are long, the people are loud, the kids are whining, and the day is hot. I put two cartons of corn muffin mix in my basket, because they were two for a dollar. I'd decided to go Mexican, and I bought black beans, canned spicy tomatoes, Spanish rice, and will grill the Hatch chiles I got last week at the co-op, and make a huge black bean salad and corn muffin on the side. The corn muffins rang up at 60 cents each instead of 50 cents per. Twenty cents may sound like a lot, but increasingly, the Dollar Store's prices at the register and price on the shelf don't match. Guess which is always higher. You guessed right, the register.

So this happens every time now, at least a couple of times. I go to that store 4X month, so if I'm gypped out of an average of 35 cents each time, and that is a low conservative estimate, then at the end of the year I'm gypped out of $17.50, or two months worth of Netflix bills. If I'm gypped an average of 50 cents each time, that's $24 and one and a half Bountiful Baskets price. You see my thinking.

So I keep an eagle eye on the prices, and when the corn muffin mix rang up overpriced I mentioned it. The cashier said that sometimes it takes the sale price off at the end. "It might do that this time." I said "Might??" arching my eyebrow the best I could without looking Halloweeny and thinking but not saying, "What is this, a casino?"

The people behind me started shifting foot to foot, the universally understood gesture of "I knew I'd get in the slow line today" which is their way of telling me I'm the equivalent of hair gunk slowing the flow of the drain.

Neither the cashier guy nor I saw a 'take it off at the end' price so he called on the microphone for a "Void and an override, please!" More shifting of feet, accompanied by grumbles. Audible growls, actually. I might as well be 15 years old and the cashier shouting on the microphone, "Price check on Kotex, please!"

The void lady arrived in due time, unhurried and unperturbed and unfazed by any antiquated concept of 'customer service.' She listened to the cashier and looked at the register monitor, and said "Look, the price is taken off right there!" The line almost had a mutiny because "It's all for nothing!" A second cash register opened up and no one was trampled in the rush to get over there, thank goodness. No medics were called.

The cashier and void lady mumbled something together and then a great bustle erupted. Keys went in the register, and clangs and cheeps of bells and whistled and she hustled to my cart (she's really moving fast now, a-HA!) and she rooted around in my bags in the cart and then scurried back to the register and then said officiously, "Press yes on the debit please!" which I did, and she handed me the tape and I felt good that at least I had made a stand for whatever it is I am making a stand for.

I got home and the muffin mixes had been taken out of my bag. No mix.

Defeated by the Dollar Store. Again. I am now busy looking up recipe for corn bread from scratch.

I Fight Authority, Authority Always Wins

Hot day and errands don't mix

When I first moved to the south I was observing that whenever a friend and I went grocery shopping in summer, she would place a cooler in the back of her car. At the grocery store, she would buy ice, and then put the ice in the cooler and then place her milk and other perishable items in it. I quickly realized that a car sitting in 100 degree heat would be over 120 degrees inside, and that in order to preserve the milk etc for the trip home extra measures were needed. Duly noted.

Errands on a hot day are not my favorite. I knew that several of them would be complicated and time consuming. But there you go, you have to do them. On the upside, I got my package at the Post Office.

Three years ago I bought a chair, and it had served well all this time. I like to sit in it and read. The bookcase next to it is just the right height to place my tea, and the lamp offers just enough light. It is not large and therefore takes no undue amount of space and it fits me well. And when I'm not in it, the cats like it, lol. Few things in this world are perfect, and I was sad when the chair situation became less than perfect. It was old three years ago, and used. Its springs, never spring chickens to begin with, faded fast and now when I sit in it, the chair sinks to an uncomfortable level. I purchased online an egg crate cushion that is used for wheelchair bound folks, and it came today. Perfect! Rather than buy a new chair $100, I spent $7 on a good and easy fix. It means a lot to me because it's summer I want to read many books, I want a comfy chair to do it in. I mean, who doesn't like a comfy chair? ("You never expect the Spanish Inquisition! Nooo, not the comfy chair!!" Sorry, reminiscing...)

Back home, I arrived to see that the landlord had finished mowing the lawn and was weedwhacking. We both remarked on the heat, but I know that I am blessed. I don't have children to tote around in the heat or to keep cool. I don't have to make repeated visits to a hospital and park in a hot lot every day. I don't have to go work outside in the heat for my pay. I saw an old friend at the Dollar Store. She asked "What are you going to do this summer?" And I happily said, "Nothing." I can sit in my chair and read and study and write. I'm very blessed.

Speaking of the Dollar Store, I am convinced that the Laws of Physics do not apply in there. It exists inside a bubble of netherworld Laws of the Universe in which time slows or even stops, and where people are teleported to the cashier line. You didn't know that about the Dollar Store, did you? Yes. When you arrive there you are happy because there are few if any customers in the store with you. But just as you complete your shopping, suddenly a million people appear and they all get in line in front of you. See? Teleportation. Then time stops because your line never moves. See? Suspended animation. It doesn't matter how many people are ahead of you or how many items they have. Time stops. As you lean against your cart (sorry, 'buggy') you realize that it truly is remarkable. The clerks are going as fast as they can. No one is slacking. Time just stops. I budget 30-45 minutes for tasks that in any other Zone of Normal Physics should take 10 minutes. It's just the way it is.