School is starting soon. #2, the about to be middle schooler and All Destroyer of Shoes, needed to get re-equipped —if for no other reason than to not so obviously look like the bumpkin anti-vaxxing peasants we apparently are now1.
So to that end, we aimed to take advantage of a 'buy one get one free’ sale at a local outlet shoe store. After a some searching through stacks of boxes for matched pairs, appropriate sizes, trying things on, we finally came up with a worthy set of candidate boxes.
We wandered over to stand in what appeared to be the diffuse end of a long zigzag line for the cashier counter. Two more people immediately got behind us and one asks: “Is this a line?” I smile and answer: “Yes. If nothing else, we’ve just made one.” New line member #1 offers familiar concerned look at new line member #2…
We eventually wound our way through the switchbacked line toward where we could offer up the requisite sacrifice to bring the shoes home. Our turn finally arrives, a cashier, likely on the tail end of her home from college summer job, waves us down:
Cashier: “I can help you here!”
Me: “Hi — we’ll want to get these…” plops boxes on counter
Cashier: does usual cashier-y scann-y and register finger pok-y things "This one is buy one get one free, if you want to get another one, I can hold these for you”
Me: “???” slowly points at other box
Cashier: “Oh! That one is clearance.”
Me: “…OK, but presumably lesser value than that one?”
Cashier: “Yes! This one is $13.99, and this one…” scans “…is $48.99”.
Me: “$13.99 is of lesser value than $48.99 isn’t it?”
Cashier: “Yes! But its clearance”.
Me: “Can’t I count that as my ‘free’ one then, since its lower value?”
Cashier: “No, because it’s clearance.”
Me: “OK… thanks for watching out for me I guess, but how about if I sacrifice the possible higher value shoe, and use this as my free one instead?”
Cashier: Still smiling, unmoved. “No, because this one is clearance.”
Me: blinks, short pause
Me: hurried negotiation with #2. He’s not onboard with dumping the preferred BOGO pair and leaving with just the clearance box. Back to cashier: “So you’re saying I need to go back and pick another more expensive pair like this non-clearance one? The ‘clearance’ box was on the same shelf…”
Cashier: “Yep! I will wait here for you — you don’t have to go through the line again.”
Me: blinks, short pause. Then to #2 “OK. Run over there and find another one”. I follow, glance back, cashier is patiently smiling. Line members are not particularly smiling.
Me: as quickly as possible returning with a satisfactory new box of shoes that are identical, but different color than non-clearance shoe pair, plops it down
Cashier: scans “Oh. This one is clearance too!”
Me: sans negotiation with #2 “alright. Let’s then take the two clearance boxes, and skip that one”.
In the end, we left with a $13.99 and $14.99 set of clearance boxes, totaling $28.98, rather than a pair of buy one get one boxes for $48.99.
Not necessarily feeling this was a net win for anybody.
However, I am thinking I might have identified an important piece of the explanation for the past few years.
Repurposed medications have likely been marked clearance.
Despite CDC guidance changes this week suggesting we not be scowled at quite so firmly. As mandates firmly stay in place.
sad thing is, the cashier just certainly does not get it. "She is just doing her jahb."
I hope the shoes last more than a month.
I mean, both of them.