Austerity measures for Dummies

I went to the supermarket today.  That felt like a bit of an achievement, given that I can hardly breathe half the time, and the rest of the time has me coughing repulsively.  Anyhoo, I went in armed with too many re-usable bags and no shopping list, never a good combination.

I resisted the temptation to buy bargain hot pies, or huge 25-bag multipacks of crisps, or gallon vats of cheap ice cream (a decision I have been regretting on and off ever since, I might add) and stocked up with all manner of sensible meat-and-potato meal makings.  And vegetables.  And washing up liquid.  Yes, I am that sensible.

In my trolley were two tubes of Pringles (plain flavour) for Father-in-Law WithaY, who has recently developed a taste for them.  All seemed uneventful as the shopping was scanned and beeped and tagged and tracked* by the nice till lady. 

She scanned the two tubes of Pringles (plain flavour) then said "There's a Buy One, Get Two Free" offer on these.  Do you want another tube of the same flavour?"

Me:  No thanks, I only want the two tubes.

Till lady:  But there's an offer on!  You can have another one and get three but only pay for one!

Me: (packing potatoes and washing up liquid into a bag with grim efficiency)  But I only want these two.  Really.

There was a slightly accusing silence as she carried on scanning groceries and I packed bags, the two tubes of Pringles sitting folornly on the end of the conveyer belt like unwanted game show prizes.

Till lady:  Well then, I will take off one of these tubes from the bill so you get one free.  But you could have two free.  Do you want two free?

Me:  No.

I must admit that by this point I was interested to see what happened next, and prepared to argue cogently for my right to have just two tubes of Pringles if I wanted to.

This happened next:

Till lady:  Oh!  Gosh, that's strange.

Me:  What is?

Till lady:  It's taken both tubes off the bill.  So...um...you get them both free.  I think.

She fiddled about with the till for a bit, then slid both tubes down the counter to me as I continued cramming tins of beans and pots of probiotic yogurt** into the bags.  There was a queue forming behind me, which may have affected her decision making.

Till lady:  Yes.  You get them both free.  We'll just have an extra tube on the shelves now.

Me:  (Warily)  So...I get them for free?  Are you sure?

Till lady:  Yes.  You can take them.

Me:  (not touching them)  Really?  I don't want to take them without paying for them.

Till lady:  (pushing them towards me encouragingly) But you get two free!  So you can take those.

I relented and put them in my bag, paid for the shopping - not the Pringles, though, obviously - and left the shop without setting off any alarms. 

All the way home I tried to work out how she had arrived at the conclusion that "buy one, get two free" can be converted into "buy two, don't pay for either of them."  I am still not convinced by her logic, and am waiting for a knock on the door from the Fraud Squad.

Other news:  I have bronchitis.  Again.  I went to the doctor on Tuesday.  He listened to my chest, told me cheerfully that he's heard me sounding much worse, and gave me a prescription for the scary syphillis pills he prescribed at the end of my last bout of Black Lung. 

He said "Chest infections usually only last five days or so.  Let's see...how long did your last infection go on for?   Hmmmm....December till.....oh.  May.  Well, yes.  You were obviously a bit unlucky, weren't you?"

Yes, in the same sense that Cornwall is a bit wet at the moment.

He also commented "Oh, you've lost weight."  I nodded, and was about to expound on my slow but steady progress when he said sternly "I hope it's not because of all the stress*** you've been dealing with?"

No, not stress, but thanks for asking, doctor.  Eating fewer pies and drinking less cider, mostly.

I told him how much weight I intend to lose in total in order to be a non-overweight person according the the BMI scale; he advised me not to pay too much attention to BMI figures, and to weigh "as much as you feel comfortable with."  Interesting advice, which I intend to ignore. 

I am still up and writing my blog at 1am, by the way, because when I lay down in bed I start coughing hard enough to make my eyes shoot out of my head and slam into the bedroom ceiling.  And that gets old fast. 

Big day tomorrow.  The auction house is coming to Father-in-Law WithaY's place to take out all the stuff that is going to be in a sale next month.  So, hopefully I will be able to get in and give his place a bit of a clean and spruce-up once it's a bit less crammed with antiques.  And then who knows, we might even sell it.

Which would be nice.





*I'm sure that we are all being monitored via our shopping. 
**I'm on antibiotics. I have bronchitis again.  Yay me.
***Shit Storm From Hades, although that is receding a bit now.  More on this anon.