Wacky Wednesday - Oh, Just Some Humor!

I ran to Kroger tonight, mainly to get chicken breasts (on sale for $1.67/lb - a VERY good price) and cereal (another FANTASTIC deal, but exceedingly complicated to explain within these parentheses).

I loaded my cart with my 8 boxes of cereal, my chicken, and a few other things I managed to find on manager's special. Then I headed for the U-SCAN.

**Red flag!!!**

Because I could only get my fantastic deal on cereal if I did 4 boxes per transaction, I figured I would start with my bigger transaction, getting everything out of the way for the second one except the remaining 4 boxes of cereal.

So I started pulling loaves bread and English muffins out of my cart (all on manager's special for 1/2 price). I noticed as I scanned the last loaf of bread that none of these items had rung up correctly. Ugh! So I turned around to ask the cashier to fix them. But there wasn't a cashier.

**Second red flag!!! You should have gone through a REGULAR checkout, Heidi!!! Cashiers NEVER go missing in the middle of your transaction at a REGULAR checkout!!!**

I watched and waited and finally the cashier did show up. She fixed them all, but I still had to re-scan them. Okay, not a huge deal. I pressed on and was happy to see that all of my regular (and by regular, I mean on sale, of course) items were scanning correctly. I then stumbled upon yet another manager's special item.

By that time, I thought I had this down and I could do it correctly this time around, but lo and behold, that little can of tomato sauce didn't ring up correctly. To my amazement, I discovered there are actually two separate kinds of manager's special tags. Well, whatever. At this point, I just wanted to get out of the store.

I finally got through my transaction, handed the girl my coupons, and was happy to see that my total was under $20.

I paid, bagged my stuff, and threw it in my cart. "Okay, just the cereal left," I thought to myself. "This should be easy and quick."

**Red flag #3!!! You should never think to yourself that ANYTHING will be either easy OR quick - and certainly not both!!!**

The Cheerios scanned fine. $2.50/box. Then came the Total. $4.47 per box! I think not!

I turned to the cashier to tell her that they were also on sale for $2.50, but - what do ya know? She was missing again! Of course, by this time, she was also needed by the older gentleman behind me in line whose U-SCAN demon kept chanting "Please wait for cashier assistance." He quietly yelled (quietly yelled?) at the machine and we small-talked about how we knew we should not have chosen the U-SCANS tonight and, by the way, where was that cashier?

Alas! There she was! I sprang to her station to inform her of the inadequacy of the U-SCAN machine! Well, okay - no. I really just told her that the cereal had rung up incorrectly. She, of course, had to walk back to the cereal isle to make sure I wasn't trying to cheat the store into selling me the Total Raisen Bran for $2.50/box instead of the ungodly price of $4.47/box.

In the meantime, the gentleman behind me finally kicked his U-SCAN into order and was able to bag his things. He was about to leave his post when the cashier returned. He turned to her, smiling, and said, "I just want you to know that I saved 8 dollars and 30 cents tonight - even with this machine!"

I grinned at his apparent pride in saving so much money on just 3 bags of groceries. I glanced down at my receipt and chuckled quietly.

Total: $19.51
Total Savings Today: $28.99

Well, that's okay. We'll let him think he did a good job. :)

When the cashier finally got everything straightened out and realized that I wasn't lying to her about the price of the cereal, I paid my $3, bagged up my 4 boxes, and was out the door.

When I reached the van, I pulled out that receipt.

Total Savings Today: $8.38

That time I laughed out loud.