Shopping

I think I need shopping lessons; a refresher course perhaps. Or maybe even a shopping assistant.

Under the best of circumstances I've never paid much attention to price or to getting a bargain. I can get pretty single-minded about what I am looking for - clothes that fit, colors that go together... the simple stuff, really, which seem not so simple to me. With so much trouble just finding something that will 'do,' well, who cares about the price when the hunt is so exhausting? And now that I'm older and my near-vision eyesight is so poor, I can't even SEE the prices much less attend to them, so that pretty much eliminates 'deals' for me. (It doesn't bode well for sizes either...) And to add to the difficulties, I can't do even simple math in my head - numbers just don't make sense to me in that way. (In ANY way, obviously, but I'm getting ahead of myself.)

But, even laboring under my usual handicaps, I topped my own stupidity today. I had a coupon - never an easy thing for me because of the fine print of expiration dates (I usually don't know what day it is, and am not a reliable source of information on what YEAR it is either) and specifics of which size and how many and which color etc. Coupons are hard to read. And I don't care enough about them to really pay attention, so most of my coupon-redeeming attempts are stymied and I don't usually even try, out of sheer embarrassment at getting it wrong. But this coupon was irresistible - a 'same as cash' deal for ANYTHING in the store at Kohls, courtesy of shopping for groceries at Safeway. Very cool. I actually had 2 such coupons - one for $10 and one for $30, which anyone but me could tell you right off the top of their head totaled $40.

Anyway, I had these coupons, good only between November 12 and November 22. Or something like that. (Those are numbers, and they don't stick with me very well, but it was probably something like that and seemed to be a short period of time.) I thought I should try to use them. So today - having checked the calendar several times for the date and having the date seem to be within the allotted time period - I marched right into the store, full of confidence that I could find some little thing worth the value of the coupons, which, by the time I had found a parking place and did the whole marching thing etc. I had forgotten the total value of...

And sure enough, there was a little beaded necklace ($18) that I thought might go with a top I had, and there were some slippers ($22) that looked like the right size and somehow, in my mind, that seemed to fill the bill. Now, 18 + 22 ought to add up to something that has a zero at the end and although I couldn't actually count that high (even with my shoes off, trying on slippers) I was buying it with 'free money' and if I had to make up a little difference, that would be OK. (I don't know why I thought I'd owe them, but it came to me that I would, so that stuck in my mind, and that would be fine. Didn't give it another thought.)

And it would have been fine, probably, if the cashier had been paying a little attention, but she wasn't good at math either I guess. Both items were on sale - who knew? (Yes, I would have known if I'd been able to see the fine print on the sign above where they were displayed, but I couldn't.) So my total was something like $21.50. And she scanned both coupons, without looking. And now we had a problem. I'd spent $40 on something that only cost $22.

Calls to the manager ensued. Customer service people showed up to peer at the register tape. The customer behind me (poor lady was trying to buy something but was so entertained by the situation that she didn't seem to mind the delay) tried to help me find something else to buy. The clerk recommended the socks behind me with Aloe in them. The manager decided I should look around a bit more since I'd never been in Kohls before. I did end up with the socks (what am I going to do with them? Skid around on the floor??) and another piece of costume jewelry - and all involved agreed that it didn't matter, because it was all free.

Somehow the total equaled exactly $40 and we all went merrily on our way.

Hmmmmm. Now that I think about it, that seems improbable, doesn't it?

I probably won't go shopping again without Mark along.