Honoring and remembering our fallen soldiers takes precedence on this and every Memorial Day Holiday weekend. I’m aware of the significance, my dad fought in World War Two and my grandfather was in the cavalry in World War One, and my father-in-law was in the Korean War and Vietnam War. Although I pause to reflect on their sacrifices and thank God for their return to us, I also recognize this is a time to celebrate life. This is spring and it’s a wonderful time for enjoying our little piece of the world, thanks in no small part to the men and women that fought to protect our freedom. Since this was a long weekend, we typically take advantage of the time off from work, planting flowers in our yard for a colorful backyard canvas, preparing for the long summer season ahead. A little cooperative weather and look out, thousands of people get the same idea, hanging out at the local garden center, buying flowers, mulch and dirt worth hundreds of dollars. We were typical, buying impatiens, geraniums, spikes, vinca, a hanging basket, bags of top soil, compost, and mulch. The bill for flowers alone cost more than 200-dollars from one of the high quality garden shops. But for the rest of the supplies, we chose one of the less expensive outdoor stores, thinking we’d save a bit on such items as top soil. I mean, dirt is dirt, right? The dirt can be a higher quality and a little more expensive for planting in pots or for vegetables, but generally is fairly inexpensive, and in the case of this particular large box store, a 40 pound bag of soil cost just over one dollar a bag. My wife and I were grateful for the likely savings at the checkout counter. The store was jammed with people buying a little of everything they saw, annuals and perennials. Nothing stayed long on the shelves. A good hour in the store, up and down every aisle where we weren’t impeded by someone’s cart and we were through picking out what we needed to complete the look we desired for our yard this summer. On to the checkout, however the lines were very long there. Yet to our amazement, a clerk had positioned herself in a mobile checkout next to one of the long lines. Such a wonderful idea, having someone go through all the stuff, easing the clerk’s job and moving forward the line. The mobile clerk used her checkout gun, but suddenly called over a manager because the gun was firing blanks, just not registering the products fast enough. So there they stood, near us, looking slightly puzzled, ordering another of these mobile carts. But before one could arrive from one of the storage sites on the grounds, the clerk handed me a fancy looking card, saying the prices of your items were on this card and I should present it to the clerk at the register.This was fairly exciting stuff, having a card with all our purchases and we would not have to take up any more time from the clerk or the growing line behind us. I handed the card to the clerk and she inserted it in the register, and it spouted out a figure. She said we had to pay 199-dollars. I mumbled, “that is a bit more than we thought. Did we have 199 dollars worth of stuff? My wife, never one for beating around the bush, told the clerk that we clearly didn’t spend 199-dollars. She asked the clerk to look at our cart…and said we were also buying ten bags of topsoil and 5 bags of Cyprus mulch, but the combined total of those bags wouldn’t be more than 20-dollars. The clerk reluctantly went item by item over our buys, and I did some figuring in my head, adding one dollar per item over the cost and I reached a conservative 120-dollars, the clerk finally read off what she had for us at 109-dollars, not the 199 dollars we were told to pay earlier, a 90-dollar savings in a matter of minutes. The clerk leaned over to me, and I looked at her and then at the waiting herd and she asked whether I was willing to pay that amount? I said I was as long as this is the correct amount. I mean come on, just get the price right, that’s all we ask. We’re not going to war with the clerk. We wheeled our flowers, dirt and mulch back to the car, happy we could save a few bucks.
Molly J
