The Dinette Set by Julie Larson for January 15, 2020

And they walk among us….

Math is not most people’ strong suit.

I mean, the Pennys are notorious, but working in retail I learned to expect a lack of basic arithmetic.

Way back in college I shopped at a local supermarket that would have sales like 15 cents each, or 6 for a dollar…

and some people would buy 6 to get the sale price.

(You can tell how long ago that was by anything costing 15 cents!)

Years later a woman wanting to buy three of something from me for $30 each asked whether I would take $100 for all three…

I said I’d even take $90…. I thought she’d realise, and laugh… but she thanked me profusely.

In the 90’s, managing a chocolate shop in a mall… our scale read in decimal parts of a pound… like you see on hamburger packages at the supermarket.

A customer would ask for, say, a quarter of a pound… just as an example….

she’d choose pieces till the scale said .35 lb… then she’d say, “Oh, I guess 35 ounces is OK.”

My staff did the same thing…. I learned to bite my tongue.

As long as they understood each other, everybody was happy and no one was insulted.

Then later, helping out in a clothing store….

They had semi-annual sales where everything was 25% off.

One day they switched to buy one full price, get a second item 50% off.

Since it had to be the least expensive that was half price, they made more money.

But the customers, just like the Pennys, would remark that the new sales were better, because they got something for 50% off.

The Penny’s are definitely not 2 for 1 people… But they are definitely half off…!

McDonald’s was selling a 1/3 pound burger for awhile. People were mad that it cost more than the 1/4 pound!. They thought 1/3 was smaller than 1/4.

Joy thinks she’s paying 50% off for one and still getting one free.

When you buy a buy one, get one offer at Kroger, the first item rings up at $0.00 and the second one for the regular price.

In 7th grade I volunteered at the snack counter at my grade school during lunch. All packaged snacks and sweets (it was the early ‘60s, OK?). I learned to make change on the run. Fast forward a few years, I was working the counter at a fast food place, no electronic cash drawer; making change again AND adding up the bill. Fast forward a good thirty years and I’m standing in front of a young person who’s on the kitchen side of a fast-food counter looking at me absolutely blankly because they have to make change. Had not clue ONE how to even begin, and struggled even as I explained the process. Sigh. Yes, the world is Crustwood.

In spite of a very good education, I was in college and working at a taco stand (in the 70’s) before I got really good at addition.