Buyer, Beware

     OK- This post is totally on the practical side, and the music is gonna' seem really out of place, but I feel the need to alert my readers to an important issue: buyer beware. Last night my husband and I did some shopping in Walmart. Call it being a geek or maybe it's just trying all these years to figure out where the money goes, but what I like to do is add up (in my head) the exact cost of my purchases at the END of the shopping trip. It's kind of a game I like to play- to see how close I can get to the actual total.

 I told my husband, "The grand total will probably be between $170 and $180."
  
  "Too broad," he said. "Give me an exact total."

"Well, I was talking and not paying very close attention, but OK- I'll say $172.00"

The cashier gave us the grand total: "That will be $186.20"

"Wow!" I said. "I was way off tonight. How did I come up with THAT total."

"Happens easily at Walmart," the cashier replied.

I was annoyed the whole way home, trying to think of what went wrong in my calculations (Well, I was not really so upset, but I like embellishment).

I came home and studied the receipt. Not to my surprise, I found several major mistakes. I had been overcharged for juice (she rang up three instead of two), binders, and notebooks. All in all, the mistakes totalled $14.60!

Do you know what that means? The total was supposed to have been $171.60. I was forty cents off.
"I knew it!!" I screamed. Emily thought I was yelling to call the ambulance (NOT an embellishment. She really did).

"What in the world!?" My husband asked. I proudly told him that I was actually right about the total- only forty cents off.

"Well," he smugly replied, "You were still way off."

So....I'm really not posting this to reveal the hidden mathematical genius inside of me (trust me- you won't find one!). I AM cautioning ALL OF YOU to please: CHECK YOUR RECEIPTS when you go to any store- even if you aren't trying to guess the total before it comes up. With the electronic scanners and the immense volume of people large stores serve, mistakes happen so easily and quickly.

I will admit: I don't know if I was happier that I was indeed RIGHT about the total, or if I got the $14.60 back, hassle free :)