22 FEB 09: Saturday Night Specials?
They say Saturday is the busiest shopping day of the week. For years, I've tried my best to balance things out - shopping for groceries on Friday or Sundays. Yeah, this Sabbath-keeping stuff is serious. I'm only stopping for a bag of ice if the Presiding Elder calls in advance, and says the punch bowl needs it.
But I hopped in the car after my Saturday evening twilight run, to visit a couple of stores in the Wynnton/Macon Road corridor. After 7:00 p.m., the crowds seem to go away. Of course, this could be due to wild rumors about criminals swarming around the parking lots.
The first stop was Walgreens, at the east end of 13th Street. A couple of special offers lured me there, but both turned out to be disappointments. There were half-gallons of milk on sale for $1.79 - but the fat-free containers had Sunday expiration dates. For a single guy, this is a problem. For that mother of 14 in southern California, it's probably not.
(No, I will NOT refer to that mother with that "Octo-" label. That is a demeaning title for a woman facing a very big challenge - and it makes her sound like a character in a Superman comic book.)
I stepped up the ladder, and bought a half-gallon of one-percent milk with a later expiration date. Well, I think it's milk. The label says it's "Nutrish," with added A and B vitamins. The scoffers who claimed pasteurization and added vitamin D ruined milk must have all died.
But even more disturbing was a coupon in the Walgreens weekly ad, offering two "Big Rolls" of toilet paper for a dollar. Those rolls were all gone - as if fans from Auburn snatched them all, to celebrate winning another Southeastern Conference swimming title.
The man behind the checkout counter told me of a substitution - four-packs of Big Rolls for two dollars. Trouble was, they were gone as well. How desperate have people become in a recession, when all that's left in the toilet paper aisle is high-priced Charmin?
I decided to wait until another day for bathroom tissue, and rolled on to the second stop. Publix has become my normal place to buy postage stamps. If the post office added a bakery offering "first-class donuts," this might change....
The current Publix ad gave me special reason to stop - as a box of three-dozen "assorted" bakery cookies is on sale for $3.59. But trouble developed here as well, when I picked up a box filled with chocolate chip cookies and took it to the checkout line. No, the 36 cookies were NOT ruled to be above the "ten items or less" boundary.
The register showed my chocolate chip cookie package costing $5.09. Then again, so did the price sticker on the package. So I asked about the weekly ad, and the checkout person was puzzled when she pulled it out of a drawer. Doesn't "assorted" cookies mean any package of three dozen? The chips are down -- like everything else, right?
The checkout person walked over to a manager for a ruling. So I turned to the people waiting behind me in line, and sounded like a National Football League referee. "Customer is challenging the ruling on the field that the cookies should cost $5.09, when the ad says $3.59. We will have a review." No, those people did NOT wait for the timeout to end. Maybe if I'd added an echo effect....
In a moment, the checkout person hurried back with an explanation. The special offer on "assorted" cookies was only for cookies assorted INSIDE the box. I'd have to get the package with 12 chocolate chip cookies, 12 sugar cookies and 12 oatmeal raisin cookies. Come to think of it, that IS a more culturally diverse choice.
Instead of putting up a fuss, I accepted this decision and walked back to the Publix bakery section. Only one of the assorted cookie packages remained -- which at least was one better than Walgreens. And for once, I could "man up" and endure eating sugar cookies before getting to the good stuff.
After all of this, you may be wondering whatever happened to an old phrase - "the customer is always right." Not on this night, I wasn't. I didn't ask for a Walgreens coupon rain check, and I didn't demand my chocolate chip cookies get a $1.50 discount. Instead, I accepted the fact that other customers and store rules came first. One of these days, my long losing streak will end....
-> Our other blog starts with poker, then goes in directions you might not expect. See what we mean at "On the Flop!" <--
E-MAIL UPDATE: A news release Saturday marked a change in Columbus politics. We're only posting the top part of it...
Josh McKoon, 29 year old Columbus attorney, announced today to Muscogee County Republican Party members that he will not stand for election to another term for Chairman.
McKoon has formerly served as Chairman of the Muscogee County Young Republicans, as National Committeeman from the State of Georgia to the Young Republican National Federation and as Secretary of the Muscogee County Republican Party....
Yet I doubt we've heard the last of McKoon. Why, he's probably already reserved a bulldozer to begin scraping up asphalt behind the Columbus Public Library for that park.
Josh McKoon also is active with the nonpartisan Common Cause of Columbus. Could this explain why he's leaving the top position in the Muscogee County Republican Party - because he discovered some Democratic ideas actually make some sense?
Another reader noted our e-mail editing policy, which was stated Friday:
For future reference always correct my grammatical errors. Plese. :^O
Sam
All right, then. There probably should be a comma after "reference." And since you didn't ask me to correct your spelling.... well, you know....
Now to a busy weekend of interesting news:
+ Columbus Police arrested two employees of the Pyramid Food Mart on Buena Vista Road. Officers say they found video slot machines hidden in a back room. If this is true, this was a generous idea - to let people win back the money they spent on four-dollar per-gallon gasoline.
+ Kodak opened a new production line at its imaging plate factory in Columbus. The company promises to add 50 local workers by mid-year, even though it recently announced an 18-percent reduction in its worldwide workforce. Leave it to Kodak to develop something from a "negative."
+ Aflac stock dropped to nearly 15 dollars, before rallying to $17.01. The company's stock value has dropped by nearly two-thirds since the year began - so it's no wonder the Aflac tower didn't have the "A" and "L" letters on the east side lit Saturday night. [True!]
+ Phenix City officials signed an economic development partnership deal with Troy University. Troy's experts will help recruit more shopping centers and restaurants to town. Shouldn't they start by filling the unused spaces in the current shopping centers? The abandoned Winn-Dixie store on U.S. 280 hasn't even been claimed for a nightclub.
+ Phenix City's new ordinance took effect banning smoking in most public places. Smoking in your car is still allowed - since city workers won't be able to tell that smoke apart from the steam of frustrated drivers on Broad Street.
+ The "Vision '09" worship weekend at the Columbus Civic Center concluded with a concert by the band Mercy Me. If only they'd change one letter in that name - then they could be sponsored by "MyChurch" and "My Mechanic."
+ Columbus native Bebo Norman was nominated for a Dove Award, for Best Christian Pop/Contemporary Album. If he doesn't win the award in April, at least he can enjoy the Dove chocolates in that gift basket.
+ A Thomas County, Georgia emergency supervisor was placed on leave, because alerts were never sounded before a tornado struck Wednesday night. That supervisor obviously cared about the local residents -- because he didn't dare interrupt "American Idol."
+ The Columbus Cottonmouths lost 6-5 in overtime to Twin City. The Snakes played with Coach Jerome Bechard and four players suspended, after a lengthy bench-clearing brawl Friday night. When you wear pink jerseys at a men's hockey game, some would say you're asking for trouble....
(The intermissions were extra-long during Saturday night's game in Winston-Salem, so Twin City could stage its "Miss Cyclone" pageant. I assume any woman with missing teeth had an extra advantage.)
+ Roundball Saturday Night (tm) found Louisiana State's men stopping Auburn 79-72 to clinch the Southeastern Conference Western Division. Auburn radio announcer Rod Bramblett declared the officiating was poor on both sides - which is "fair and balanced" on the level of Sean Hannity discussing President Obama.
+ The Phenix City Central boys and Smiths Station girls advanced to the Alabama state high school basketball semifinals. Both 6-A semifinal rounds will have teams from Bob Jones High School of Madison - so we assume the men and ladies will ride segregated buses, to avoid any ungodly teenage hand-holding.
+ Instant Message to Clark Howard: Our best wishes as you deal with prostate cancer. But we're a bit surprised - because we know how you love to save money, so we figured you'd use frequent flier miles to buy cheap supplements in Mexico.
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