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Checkout Smackdown

If you have read many of my blog articles, you know my love of a coupon. Recently, I was shopping in a local store and on the end cap there was a display of large coloring pages featuring Dora and Batman. I thought this would be a good little treat for the urchins.

Imagine my joy when I saw on the Dora package a coupon for $1.00 off a package of crayons. What better item to go with coloring sheets than crayons? I was certain the kids would enjoy those much more than the pens or highlighters I usually scrape up. I could hear the chants of "Best Mama Ever!" I find the crayons and toss them in my basket and finish my shopping.

I was greeted in a less than enthusiastic manner by Faye, the checkout lady. Faye was an older lady and had evidently grown resentful of her employment situation. I thought I would be nice and I laid out my items on the belt and set the various coupons alongside the items.

Faye rang up my goods, and when she came to my crayons she scowled even deeper and said, "This coupons is expired". I replied, "Really? But you just saw it was on the package-I pulled it right off the shelf.".

"Well, I can't help that," she said in her oh-so-tacky way. Until that point in time, I had felt slightly sorry for ol'Faye. I had done my best to smile and be friendly and keep my tone upbeat. All that energy was wasted (for those who know me know that I'm generally an all-business, straight-talking, no-nonsense kind of gal). I rose to my full, intentionally intimidating height and leveled a cool gaze on little ol'Faye.

"Since your store has those coupons on the items on the shelf, and since there are many more back there, I believe you need to honor it," I tell her.

"Well I can't so do you want the crayons or not?"

I could not believe she said that. Little did ol'Faye know she had just poked the bear. I made up my mind right then and there that I WOULD be getting my dollar off that box of crayons, even if it meant El Hubbo had to sell a kidney to bail me out of jail.

"I do want the crayons, and I want the dollar off, so why don't you go ahead and call a manager on over here?". I had by this point assumed the hand on hip stance and was not far from shaking my finger in her face. We were half a step from def con redneck.

She rolled her eyes. Oh, yes she did. And all 5'2" of her stood there glaring at me while we waited. All 5'10" of me glared back. A lady had pulled her basket up behind me, and I turned to her and told her she might want to go to another register as we could be here awhile. She took a look at the standoff between me and ol'Faye and wisely cleared out.

One minute, two minutes, three minutes passed. No manager came. Ol'Faye and I were locked in a staredown. She finally blinked and took the crayons and the coupon over to another register. I watched intently as she explained to another lady the situation. The lady looked up at me, then I saw her whisper something to ol'Faye and ol'Faye frowned even deeper and shuffled back.

Without a word, she came back and rang up the Crayons. I knew what had happened, but I wanted to hear it. "What about the coupon?" I asked.

"I took a dollar off the price of the box, just like my supervisor told me to," she said.

"Ok, thank you," I replied. "But, you will have others with this same issue as long as you leave those on the shelves. You might want to go remove them if you don't want to honor them. I'd hate for someone else to go through this for just a dollar". Yes, that was said with a straight face even though I was laughing internally. She deserved a lecture.

I'm pretty sure I could read ol'Faye's mind with the look she gave me, however, it is not my habit to put profanity in my blog, so I will just leave it to your imagination.

Ol'Faye was ready to be shed of me; she didn't even hand me my bags-I had to turn the turntable to get them all. But, I laughed all the way to the car, one dollar richer.

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