#238 Count Dis

I think I’m getting skinflint-itis. I like to think of myself as a guy that’s not afraid to pay full price because full price is, or used to be, fair price, and that asking a retailer give you a discount is ignoring the fact that he has lots of expenses in the way of lights, shipping and labor that eat up his apparent profit margin like sumo wrestlers at the rice buffet. So I have never been one of those people who insisted on only buying things if they are on sale. But nowadays, the sad fact is most retailers have caught on that most buyers are that way. So they did what they had to do, marked things up more so they could mark them right back down again and get the same price they would have anyhow. The illusion of getting a deal is maintained, the consumer feels good, the retailer gets his nut and its win-win for everybody except the child worker/slave in Oompa Loompa land. Don’t feel too bad. The owners of Toyota have to face that Kathie Lee-type political controversy every time one of their cars gets sold in Japan with the label “Made in the USA.” Japanese workers get a little fed up with outsourcing stuff to third world America.
In any event, I went into this store because I had a gift certificate. I never shopped in the store ordinarily but I thought I might as well not throw the equivalent of money away and so I decided to pick out something that was as close as possible to the exact amount of the certificate. Naturally, I went a little over. But I figured, hey what the heck I got the item for only a few bucks so why complain. The clerk then surprised me. She said the item was 20% off so my total charge would be less and instead of going over and having to come up with the cash, they would owe me money. Great! Well, not great, it was one of those certificates you can’t get money back on. And it was one of those certificates where you couldn’t carry forward a balance. Which, since it was one of those computer card things, sounded pretty bogus to me. They could keep a small electronic credit on file, they just didn’t want to hassle it. So, It was either buy something else and go over or forfeit the balance. I hadn’t come to the game prepared so I forfeited. Now here’s the deal. At that point, I was angered with a capital PO. I mean, it was a gift certificate for the full amount that someone paid the full amount for. How dare they make me forfeit the difference? Here I was prepared to go over and pay extra and everything. But you know what, I told myself, she did give you 20% off, which is why it was under in the first place, she just took a couple of the percents she was giving you back so it all came out even. But it still rankles. I would have felt so much better if she had just not told me about the discount and said they’d let the few extra bucks over the gift certificate slide.
But another thing worries me more. When did I turn into an old fart penny pincher? Next I suppose, I’ll be holding up the grocery line while I fish exact change out of my coin purse.
America, ya gotta love it.