Buy 1 get 2 free
I stopped in a convenience store tonight to pick up some Diet Coke because I had let our supply get alarmingly low. There was a little sign on the cooler that said 20oz Coke products were buy two get one free. Cool. So I grabbed nine of them and humped them up to the counter. The clerk was a cute little girl who looked about 12 years old and terribly bored — her name might have been Buffy. As I stood all the precious diet coke in an orderly geometric pattern on the counter, I mentioned the sale. This is what happened next:
Buffy: I can’t remember how to ring these cokes on sale up.
Me: How much are they ordinarily?
Buffy: 1.38 each… but how do I know how much the free ones are? :::picking up a calculator and poking furiously at it while customers started to back up behind me — it was obvious she wasn’t really using the calculator as a tool she was just poking blindly at it because that seemed to her like the thing to do in this situation:::
Me: Well… 1.38 each times two is… lets see… 1.40 times two is 2.80… minus four cents is 2.76… divided by three is 92 cents each. So you can just enter 92 cents nine times and that will take care of it.
Buffy looked up at me in the middle of poking at her calculator. Her expression was screaming ‘like I’m gonna trust you, old lady’ which to be honest I found a little irritating. I mean I don’t care if she feels that way or not, but for god’s sake make an effort to hide it already. I glanced around at the crowd standing behind me and realized they were all about Buffy’s age and all had just about the same expression on their faces — stupid old woman. Except for the lady standing right behind me who was a few years older than me. She just looked neutral.
Buffy: Oh wait I know… I’ll just ring up six of them… <poking at the cash register followed by more poking at the calculator> then I’ll need to do the coupon thing… let’s see… three free ones times 1.38… that’s 4.14 off… ok, is that right… hmmm…
The crowd behind me was starting to get restless because she was taking so long. Hell, I was starting to get restless, too. When — finally — she poked the cash register a few more times and announced, “$4.14″
What to do? What to do? Ok… I should say here that I spent six years working in a convenience store in my youth. I know what it’s like to be responsible for the till balancing at the end of the night so I never rip off clerks. Even if it’s their mistake I always give the extra change back. But then I didn’t act all snarky to my customers and I have to say I wasn’t impressed with her attitude. I glanced at the crowd. From what I could see none of the younger folk were paying attention or understood what was going on. The other middle aged lady met my eye for a second and looked away suppressing laughter.
I handed over my $4.14 for nine diet cokes and the lady behind me immediately asked, “Is that sale good for regular Coke, too?”
Looking quite pleased with herself for solving the mystery of the Coke sale, Buffy said, “Yes” as the older lady headed off to the cooler to stock up.
I met up with the older lady in the parking lot as she carried two big bags of Coke to her car. She smiled and said, “She really should have listened to you when you told her how much to charge, but I’m glad she didn’t. She works almost every evening so I think I’ll come stock up every night this week.”
As I drove off, I thought about how the thirty year old me would have tried to make Buffy see reason. Would have tried to explain where the math was going horribly horribly wrong for her. Would have at least cared. The 43 year old me just wished I had gone back and bought nine more.
lol! I wonder sometimes if this generation will amount to anything. We have the same problem here, only they speak French into the bargain!
I can’t believe you didn’t tell her that she owed you ANOTHER free one. You only got nine. She owed you the tenth one for free!
Well duh, I read it as buy one, get one free.
Now, where’s this place again?
I’ve worked several jobs in my life where I was also responsible for a till balancing at the end of the day, but there’s a difference between an honest mistake (which one doesn’t mind bringing to the attention of the clerk) and just plain stupid.
And when it’s stupid, I just pay what I was asked. Maybe they’ll figure it out when their drawer keeps coming up short or after they keep getting fired. Unlikely, but not my problem. I’m not a math teacher.
On occasion, I will admit, I’m intentionally evil. If, for instance, my purchases total $6.86, I like to give the clerk a $20 bill and .11 cents and then watch them squirm while they try to figure out how much to give as change. It’s not as much fun when they can just punch the amount into the register and get a readout, but it usually elicits the same blank stare.
It’s really VERY amusing.
Lynn,
Its a little place down in Arkansas conveniently located right next to our big old mecca of home-time… Outback Steakhouse. So now I can run down to Arkansas and come back with virtually free diet coke and big old steaks. What’s not to love?
Salena,
OMG! I do that, too! Sometimes I just can’t help myself. Especially if they’ve already punched in the $20 bill so the register is telling them one thing and then I give them a random amount of additional change as an after thought. I have actually had them just stand there and say, “I can’t do that” and hand the change back to me.
I agree that one is under no obligation to try to “fix stupid” when it’s obviously hopeless. Especially if they’re snarky. This girl was really seriously snarky so I didn’t feel a bit bad about taking the ‘discount’ she was offering.
I would do it again. I would do it tonight. I wonder if she’s working tonight? I hope she is cause I’m hearing a big old full-figured T-bone calling me across the miles. The steak is using that, “Heeeyyyyyy big boy… how you doin tonight… don’t I sound good… you want to spend a little time with me tonight… I’m all juicy and tender…” voice that drives me crazy. How am I supposed to resist such a good come-on?
hahaha! Loves it! Damn kids these days. But, with any luck us Gen X’ers will all soon be getting free soda EVERYWHERE!
Hedon,
SO funny! I do that one too!! Yeah, snarky doesn’t get very far with me. I have no problem saying in that situation, “Well, I guess you’re going to have to void it out and start over.” Icy stares abound.
Just recently, Ed and I stopped at a McDonald’s when we were fleeing Hurricane Ike (that sounds so dramatic, doesn’t it?). We just wanted some ice cream and something to drink and they had a big parking lot next door which made it easy to park.
Which reminds me….as we were walking up to the place, I saw a guy outside holding an infant and he was wearing one of those paper domed masks….like this: http://tinyurl.com/5xoqms You know, the ones the Chinese people used to wear all the time to ward off SARS. I was wondering why the ADULT was wearing the germ protector mask, yet the INFANT (with what you would think would be the fresh and easily compromised immune system) didn’t have one on. Unless the guy was sick and didn’t want to give it to the kid? Hmmm…
Anyway – back to my story. We were in McDonald’s and the lady in front of me ordered three drinks and some other crap for her and her two kids. Well, they gave her four cups and charged her for four drinks. Naturally, she complained. They tried to convince her she needed the extra drink, but she wasn’t budging. She wanted her money back.
But they didn’t know how to refund her money. No less than six people came over to examine the receipt to see if, in fact, she was charged for four drinks and not three. Then they discussed what to do about it. Perhaps you want something else on the menu? they asked. She didn’t. She just wanted her money back and they were trying to tell her in several different ways that they didn’t know how to credit her card back the amount, that their drawer would be short because it wasn’t actual cash (or some crap like that) and that it would be better if she just bought another item.
She didn’t want another item. She wanted her money back, but it was clear she wasn’t getting it. Unless she wanted to hold up the line all night. So Super Salena stepped in and saved the day! (because *I* didn’t want to be on line all night!)
I was planning on getting a large Diet Coke anyway (nectar of the Gods and Superheroes, as you probably already know) and said, “How much is the Diet Coke?” “$1.04″ said the girl behind the counter. “Great.” So I took out $1.04 and handed it to the woman who wanted her money back, seized her cup, and put smiles on everyone’s faces. Well, except for the six McDonald’s employees who were still trying to figure out what just happened. Thankfully, the lady in front of me understood and she took her drinks and moved away from the counter. My GOD, we could have been there for HOURS and all I wanted was a Diet Coke and a ice cream sundae.
It’s a sad, sad place to be, out there amongst those type of people. I’m not claiming to be able to fix the world’s problems, but I can certainly save the day with $ 1.04. Perhaps the government should consider using some of that $700 billion toward education……
CAPTCHA: Silk Postmen (OMG, it’s addicting!!)
Salena and Chat Blanc,
I think its a conspiracy by the baby-boomers — and this isn’t another one of my crazy un-thought-out conspiracy theories, either, this is one of my crazy thought-out theories.
Ok, look at this… those baby boomers made sure that our generation was well educated. Because they knew we would be the generation to take care of them when they were ancient and wandering around muttering about Woodstock like Grandpa Simpson on a bender. So… they needed us to be on top of our game so they could suck the care-giving-ness out of us… hence we got a pretty good education if we wanted it.
But the twenty-somethings? Nah… the boomers didn’t want a bunch of young-ass punks being smarter than them while they were on the down-hill slide and only a couple years away from blithering into their tapioca. So they cut funding to education. Then they cut funding again. And they ended up producing a generation of twenty-somethings that can’t find Earth on a globe. Or count change. Or read. Or think.
So I think this puts us all in an interesting position. The boomers are well on their way to youth-obsessed dementia and the twenty-somethings have never been taught to think…. mwahahaha… I think we are going to rule the world soon. If we want to, that is.
CAPTCHA: Butler March (an army of Jeeves)