The 6 Minute Gum Purchase

I’ll bet you had no idea that this weekend is the final round of the Cheetah Championships of the Lumber Liquidator Pro Bowling Association Tour. This event is being held in the fabulous metropolis of Allen Park, Michigan.

The type of person that watches the PBA could be described in this brief yet painful experience.

I walk into a local convenience store to buy a pack of gum. I see a display for my favorite brand which states, “2 for 1 - $1.39.” It must be my lucky day. To add some excitement to my selection I grab a spearmint flavored box and a cinnamon flavored box.

I give them to the clerk who rings them up and says, “$2.86.” I’m no math genius but it’s easy to tell that he didn’t charge me the equivalent of the special. I calmly and politely inform him of the sign that offers the special. One note here on this, the display is directly in front of the register.

He looks down again, clears out the register, rings them up and as if he completely forgot the conversation just moments before says, “$2.86.”

I again remind him of the special. At this point he says, “Oh. They have to be the same kind,” referring to flavor. Ridiculous, but not unfathomable, I acquiesce and tell him to ring up two of the spearmint as I grab another off the shelf.

Again, he clears out the register, rings them up and yet again says, “$2.86.” He still is saying it in a way that he either forgot what the previous amount was or he possibly thinks it is different than before.

Still calmly, but not so much patiently, I remind him of the special. At this point it seems to begin to set in and he starts working with the register a little bit. He eventually comes up with a different value. He looks up and says, “2.06.”

I said, “I’m sorry. It says $1.39 for two.” He replies, “I have to charge tax.” I explained to him that there is no way that the tax on $1.39 is .67 cents.

The other clerk who was helping other customers has been watching this exchange for a little while. She finally says to me that I must select the gum that actually has the promotion sticker on the front of the package that says, “Buy One Get One Free.” Apparently the two packages of gum I picked up were not good enough for their brother and sister packages to meet this requirement and obtain a sticker.

I swapped them out for the stickered packages and remarkably the computer rang it up as $1.52.

At least I remained nice and kind to the guy, but come on!

I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised, but it was the longest gum buying experience of my life. He went back to watching bowling on the television behind the counter as I left the store. That’s a man that may not know his in-store specials, but he does know good bowling when he sees it.