Cunning and Connivery at the Checkout Counter?

Just recently, I've been in pie-making mode.  My first attempt was a pumpkin pie, sugar-free for my husband. I figured pumpkin is healthy.  It's squash, right?  Fiber? Vitamin A?

Keeping health considerations in mind, I went down the aisle at my local grocery store the other day to get the fat free evaporated milk. The national name brand had a price posted, and hey, it was on sale! The store brand had no price posted.

I first went for the national brand, on sale at $1.39, but grabbed the store brand, too, just to see what the non-posted price was.

It was 99 cents.  I told them to keep the 'sale' national brand and I'd take the one for 40 cents less.

A couple of days later, Iwent to the same store, looking for French bread rolls for French dip beef sandwiches (OK, so, we took a break from the healthy stuff!), and on a table in the back of the store, there I saw just what I wanted, and hey, they were on sale! Next to these rolls I saw another brand, no price. 

I took both packages to the front, and once again, the sale brand was more expensive, by quite a bit, than was the similar product (lower in fat and carbs, by the way!) that had no price posted.

I am starting to think they do this on purpose.

Today, while shopping at a clothing retailer, I went through checkout with a nice, chatty cashier who asked me whether I wanted my receipt in the bag.  Sure!  And then, I stopped. I pulled out the receipt and noticed she had overcharged me for one item by $8.00 and charged me TWICE for the ONE cute coral straw hat I bought to wear out in my backyard while gardening. It took her a while,but she fixed it. 

And finally, in my last shopping foray of the day, I ended up back at the local grocery store, where I was going to save another 50 cents per item if I bought 8 'mix and match' items.   I watched that register tape and didn't see the discounts. The 'helper' at the self checkout couldn't figure out how much we were supposed to get back; she didn't have a calculator handy to help her figure out how much 8 x $.50 was going to be, so she sent us to customer service.

We got back our $4.00.  On one hand, I think, "These people have jobs?" And on the other, I see why they do.  If they make enough mistakes or yack at us enough to distract us, we may get home and never realize that we've been overcharged.

I try not to be any more paranoid than I have to be, but I really do wonder . . . and I have learned to watch the prices.

As my Granny would say, "Thievers!  They're all thievers!" :-)

Oprah, Meredith, and Me

When flipping through channels lately, more and more do I see that less and less will I see anyone my age on television.

That is, unless it's those models doing household chores and then with an accidental touch, their immediate landscape turns into the great outdoors and finally, eventually, they end up sitting companionably side by side in two separate bathtubs.  Beats post-coital cigarettes, I guess?

What's up with that two-tub thing anyway?  Middle age sex is that dirty?  I don't get it at all.

Well, two tubs is maybe slightly better than the Depends commercials, or "I've fallen and I can't get up!"

And then this morning, I saw Meredith Vieira leave "The Today Show," as Oprah left her show a couple of weeks ago.  Even Katie Couric is now moving from evening news to a talk show.

It's not that I see myself in Katie or Oprah or Meredith, although I have always liked Meredith's hair, but it's that their all leaving around the same time has gotten me to wondering why.

And I am wondering whether their leaving has anything to do with the rest of the people I see on TV and whether the networks are moving these women out.

Diane Sawyer was just over in Afghanistan. Maybe we should have told her to watch her back!

Just wondering . . . .