The other day as I was in the grocery store, I was struck by the absurdity of just how far one woman was going in her pursuit to get a discount on a package of hot dogs. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m all for scoring a discount and all, especially when it involves little to no effort, and even more so when we’re talking about lots and lots of money. The greater the reward for the least amount of effort, the more exciting the prospect.
But in this case, there apparently was an ad in the weekly circular that said something to the effect of Beef Franks on Sale. Now if you ask anyone – especially my wife – if I am a stickler for language, I am. When it comes down to what someone says or what someone meant, I will almost always side with what someone says, because after all, that is what they said. I have no way of knowing what they meant. We even have our own little joke about it, saying that I have a condition – which may or may not be true.
In this case, however, the ad simply said that the beef franks were on sale. Not knowing (or really even caring) who wrote the ad, I have no way of knowing what they meant, so I would have to agree with the woman in front of this line that I happened to choose: It would likely mean that all beef franks were on sale, including the ones that she had been so unlucky to pick up. Unfortunately (for her, myself, the people in between and the cashier), she had as yet been unable to convince the cahsier that she was correct – and the cash register wasn’t having any of it either. So that meant that the manager had to get involved. It was about this time that I decided to switch lanes. A good choice, but I was still close enough to hear much of what happened next.
The lady continued to insist that Beef Franks on Sale should mean All Beef Franks on Sale, and she probably has a point. But the manager insisted that if they had to add fine print for every type of frank that wasn’t on sale, the circular would be like a small newspaper, and I can see his point too. The dang thing already has plenty of disclaimers. Perhaps the easiest thing at this juncture would be to simply give her a discount, but that wasn’t happening, and she wasn’t giving in either, and I had to leave. I have no idea what happened, but it did serve to illustrate that obviously this woman cared more about money than time – certainly her own, and definitely ours.
A package of franks cost what, three dollars? I don’t even think that the sale is that good. It’s not buy one get one free. According to the online version of the circular, they are 2 for $5.98. With the store’s loyalty card, you get 2 for four bucks. In other words, she spent all this time just to save two dollars (over two packages of franks), delaying not only herself, but everyone behind her? Now if she was buying a truckload of them – and she theoretically could, because there is no limit to this particular sale item – and so she was saving a two thousand dollars, that I could understand. But to me, the time she spent alone is easily worth the two dollars she ultimately may have saved, not to mention the stress.
Yaro Starak mentioned a while back how he killed his bargain hunting attitude, which in turn altered his approach to money and time. Please trust me when I say that it’s not about money. I love money. Ask my wife, and she’ll tell you that I probably obsess over it as much as, if not more, than many people. I’ll stop and pick up as little as a penny. I even pick up shopping cards in parking lots, on the off chance that they have unused values left (though they usually do not, I’ve found from $0.28 to $426 on them). But that takes next to no time – just stoop down and pick it up, and I can probably use all the exercise I can get.
Standing toe-to-toe with a cashier, cash register and manager to save two bucks on a couple packages of hot dogs just doesn’t make any sense. Obviously there are people out there who get this, but there are a whole lot of people who don’t. Which sort are you?