“It’s the principle of the thing.” That’s what my mother would say when we would beg, “Mom, it’s two cents. Let’s go home.” But she was relentless. She would continue politely explaining to the cashier why she was right until they either caved in and gave her the two pennies which she would preach were rightfully hers, or until we silently wasted away to emaciated skeletons while we were waiting for it to happen.
So I was raised to do better. I was raised to make sure I get the exact sale price that’s advertised. I must do the math in my head, it must match the math on the register, and I must be nice when I do all of this. Those are the components of the check-out etiquette instilled in me.
Which is why I’ve missed out on most of life. It’s why the rest of the family is running laps around the living room with crimson pom-poms in the third quarter while I’m still at the customer service counter debating the discount on Velveeta. I need a t-shirt that says: SORRY I’M LATE. THE CASHIER TOOK $14.48 OFF THE ORIGINAL PRICE INSTEAD OF $14.49.
Mama always counted the fish pieces in the box at the Captain D’s parking lot before she started the car to take them home. She made sure if she was buying barbecue by the pound, they weighed it before mixing in the sauce. I’m not exaggerating. It was hard to shortchange Mama.
So this week when I was shopping at Melk, I did my best to follow Mama’s example, but I don’t always have the strength. First of all, I parked my cart, which in Alabama is a buggy, next to the dressing room where I tried on clothes, and in the four minutes I was trying on shirts, an associate chose to clear my cart, throw away my drink I had paid $1.50 too much for, return my planned purchases to the shelves and racks, and park the buggy back at the elevator. I did do a little interrogation about my buggy — it’s the principle of the thing — meaning I asked them how close it had to be to the dressing room to kind of be a dead give-away that it probably belongs to the person in there. If I had parked it any closer, the front half of it would have been inside the sheetrock. Yeah, I stood my ground on that, but I didn’t get a voucher for a drink replacement as Mama would have held out for.
The associate was nice, and rounded up the things she had put back, one of which was a bowl - hold that thought - and I thanked her. She asked if I’d like to go ahead and check out, so we got through that fine with small talk and four of the five Miss Congeniality conversation prompts. We got through it fine until I looked at the receipt (which is a stringent requirement), and saw that she had only taken fifty percent off the price of the bowl, and not seventy percent off. I smiled at her, but then dashed to the department where the bowl had been, to make sure I read the sign right: TODAY ONLY: 70 PERCENT OFF THE ORIGINAL PRICE.
I marched right up to a different counter near the display and politely started Interrogation Two with a different cashier. She said she would take care of it, so we started over with the purchase. She scanned the price and $44.00 appeared on the screen as the original price. I said, “That’s strange. The original price is $40.” She said, “I know; it is strange, but that’s just the original price for Melk. The true original price must be $44.00, because that’s what comes up when I scan it.”
“You mean, there is an original price on this bowl of $40, and I mean the bonafide price on the little perforated tab stuck to the bowl, NOT a slashed price or a mark-down price or anything like that, and that’s not a real price?”
“Yeah, that’s just the real Melk price. But I guess the original price is $44. That’s what comes up on my scanner.”
“I like you, and I’m not trying to be picky, but I just wonder what would happen if it weren’t on sale at all, and a person picked up the bowl which says $40, brought it to the counter, and they charged him $44. He would be expected to pay that?”
“Yeah, I know, right?”
I laughed about this later to my husband, and he said, “Why did you not ask to speak to the manager?”
“I didn’t have the time or energy. I’ve already done that twice this week at the fast food place and the not-so-fast-food place, remember?”
“Yes, but it’s the principle of the thing,” he said. I’ve rubbed off on him through the years. Mama would be proud.
“Besides,” I said, “It was only a dollar and twenty cents difference.”
He looked straight into my eyes with fear, as if suddenly to a stranger, and demanded an answer to Interrogation Three.
“Where is my wife?”
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