Milking The System

He didn't look like a shit disturber, at least not on the surface. In fact he looked almost meek, like a puff of wind might set his sails for another port (say, Mac's Milk). Looks, as they say, can be deceiving. He arrived as a pirate and left with the booty.

To think, the drama unfolded over a carton of milk. At Loblaw's. Without swords. No swashbuckling, simply an expert knowledge of consumer warfare.

As I stood in the checkout line with my seventy dollars worth of groceries, the clean shaven Blackbeard ahead of me looted the Loblaw's to the tune of $5.59. Arrrrrrrrr.

Few people know that a grocery store is obliged to give the consumer free goods when they offer something for sale at one price and it rings in at a higher price (note: this applies to less-than-$10 items, different rules apply for big ticket purchases). My pirate friend knew this only too well. He had only one item to purchase....a carton of milk. The cashier rang it in and the cash register stated that $5.65 was owing. The pirate knew this would happen. In his hand he had the UPC tag from the milk cooler. It said Natrel 2% milk, 2 litres $5.59. Arrrrrrr. He brought the discrepancy to the attention of the cashier who in turn called the manager. Bad-a-bing, bad-a-boom, the pirate got his milk for free.

Does the story end here? No. I, too, happened to have a carton of the Natrel milk. Did I get mine for free? Yup. And, the couple behind me had two cartons of it. They would get theirs for free too, as long as the manager hadn't changed the code in the computer.

Life is good when you're Scottish. Life is better when you hang out with pirates. Auch arrrrrrrrrr.