Midge Loves a Deal
3 Mar
Midge liked deals. A lot. She was the kind of person who would search endlessly through magazines and newspapers for deals. And she took advantage of all of them. Oh yes she did.
Midge’s motto was “A deal in mind saves nine” which makes no sense really but Midge was about deals, not sense. She was about saving a few cents though. And she often smelled scents if they were on sale and involved a product she might use.
Anyways, it was a typical Tuesday, like it is today. And Midge was looking to save money. Like she always did.
And today there was a sale on safety pins which she desperately needed. Two bags for the price of one. Two whole bags of safety pins for $0.79 she thought although it’s most likely she really thought two bags for seventy nine cents. Most people don’t really think of money with a dollar sign or decimal place in it.
For this particular deal Midge had figured out the savings potential by utilizing the common formula: Savings = E=mc2 x phi 13y x .00003cr which in layman’s terms equated to $0.06..
This saving was obviously to much to pass up on. Plus her last deal was on boxes of lard which, because she didn’t have anywhere to store a case of lard, she had chosen to eat with everything. And as a possible outcome she had popped the buttons off all her clothing. And, since there wasn’t a sale on buttons, she need safety pins to fix her clothing problem.
So, after duct taping her clothing together, Midge hopped into her big old truck and headed across town to buy the safety pins. The same safety pins that were on sale of course.
After a 30 minute drive she arrived at the store. And she rushed inside to grab up the safety pins.
But they were sold out.
A sales clerk said that they did have the safety pins at another location though and that they would hold them for her. Sales clerks are always just so nice about things like that.
So, Midge thanked the clerk and off she headed to the other store location which just happened to be in another city.
And 4 hours later Midge had her safety pins and she started to head home.
Of course she had to stop at the gas station first. And of course she needed some snacks to nibble on as she drove the 4 hours back home.
But $220.15 later she was on her way.
Back home Midge admired her safety pins.
“I’m so smart” she thought. “I saved $0.06 on these safety pins. That’s $0.06 in my pocket and none in less thrifty peoples.”
Later that night Midge noticed something odd with her safety pins. One bag had 47 safety pins in it and the other one had only 46 safety pins in it.
So, she called the store. And they offered to hold a bag of safety pins for her if she returned the next day.
Which of course she agreed to. Because no one could stop Midge from getting full value from a deal. Even if it meant driving 8 hours the following day.
So, do you ever wonder if a deal is always a deal?
I like the way this story hits me over the head with its moral over and over again. It is a clever technique that reinforces the message so I will be unlikely to forget it right away
I know. Safety pin bags are filled by weight, not by quantity.
The sooner what’s her face learns this the happier she’ll be. As will all safety pin purchasers..
Sometimes a deal really is a deal, but what you have to go through to get it isn’t always worth the effort, like all those Black Friday advertised items. I’d rather pay full price than deal with all those crazy people. Oh, and let’s not forget the deals that really are deals, at least in the sales circular, but somehow the store’s cash registers aren’t told about the sales price, and so you pay full price, but you don’t discover it until it’s too late.
As for your $ sign dilemma, it made me finally get around to finding out how to do ascii characters on a mac, which I think is your issue too. On PC’s, you have to hold the ALT button down and somehow remember what 3-digit code to punch in to get the symbol you’re looking for to print out. On macs, it turns out to be much more logical. For instance, a cent sign is made by just hitting the Option and $ sign buttons at the same time, and wahla, you’ve got a ¢
HERE‘s a list of other ascii characters you can make.
I agree about sales not necessarily being real deals. I had a family member who was excited about saving less than a dollar on some screws once who had driven to 5 different places to “save” the money.
Thanks for the help with the Mac characters.