Turkey Talks, Val Walks

On Friday, I went shopping for my Thanksgiving vittles. Juno was willing to help, un-store-wise, by dragging hunks of bloody presumed deer meat up on the porch, but I prefer a store-bought holiday banquet. I was concerned that I'd picked a busy day, but I had errands on Thursday, and figured Saturday would be busier, on the off chance that SOME people are still working, and didn't have Friday off. I didn't want to risk the store running out of any ingredients on my list. Their new weekly sale started on Wednesday.

I rarely check the sale ads. I only looked at it this time for Hick's Diet Mountain Dew addiction. He ran out of the last six 6-packs I got on sale, and was imbibing my Diet Coke, which I'm pretty sure was past the use-by date. I only pour it at home if we've been to the casino and I don't have a chance to get to town for my 44 oz Diet Coke. We haven't been going to the casino very often, now that Hick is working on Pony House. Anyhoo... the current price of those Diet Mountain Dew 6-packs of bottles is $4.59 when not on sale!!! 

I won't buy it at that price. 

Lucky for Hick, the sale said I could get his addictive elixir 3-for-$9.00. Not as good as last time,when it was 4-for-$10. But good enough. Anyhoo... while perusing the online sale ad, I saw that I could get a FREE TURKEY! All I had to do was spend $100. Alcohol not included. It's not hard to spend $100 at Country Mart. I generally spend around $50 each trip, and it seems like I buy nothing! And now I had all my Thanksgiving items on the list.

Hick was down to his last inch of Wild Turkey. So I figured I'd pick up another bottle. He likes the 101 version, which I think is extra alcoholic. It's probably a dollar cheaper at Walmart, but I haven't been in there for almost a year and a half. T-Hoe's gas for the longer trip would be more than a dollar.

I stuck to my list, and several sales I'd seen on the ad. Rather than some 2-liter bottles of soda for our feast, which always go bad a few days later, and don't fit in FRIG II... I got some 12-pack cans. It was 3-for-$12.00 on Coke products. So I got The Pony a Sprite, me a Coke, and me also a Diet Coke. Which Hick can drink when he runs out of the 3-for-$9.00 Diet Mountain Dew. 

The cake mix for The Pony's Oreo Cake were 2-for-$4.00. I grabbed two Kerrygold butters for Pony the Butter Connoisseur. NOT on sale, and a bit expensive at $3.49. Also some regular salted butter for us, in case The Pony was feeling stingy. The Stovetop Stuffing was 2-for-$4.00. Not as cheap as the store brand, but this is one product where you can tell the difference. I got some green olives for my deviled eggs, some black olives as a side dish, and Kraft Mayo (expires in December, but I will use it by then, in the deviled eggs and 7 layer salad and potato salad and on sandwiches).

Hick wanted some ham as well as turkey. Have I mentioned that he's a carnivore? Or do you remember the tale of his towering bowl of vegetable beef soup? Anyhoo... I picked up a small Kentucky smoked ham. Not sure if that's a famous brand, but I figured a ham from Kentucky would probably be pretty good. I needed the frosting and Oreos for The Pony's cake. A bag of potatoes. Sour cream. A large box of Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies for energizing The Pony to deliver the mail. Some plain generic cornflakes (no sugar) to top off my hash brown casserole. The old box of cornflakes was past the due date last year. That's all we used them for.

By that time, I figured I had $100 worth of groceries, not counting the Wild Turkey. I headed to the turkey bin, one of those open freezer sections in the middle of the aisle. They seem SO inefficient. Anyhoo... I knew my sale ad said it had to be the Best Choice brand turkey between 10-12 pounds. 

Those dirty-tricksters! They had NOTHING marked about those free turkeys! AND right beside the 10-12 pound turkeys were 13-and-up turkeys. So you really had to know what you were doing to get this deal. When I got up front, I made sure I pointed out my FREE TURKEY before putting anything on the conveyor. The hulking young man who was my cashier was all ears.

"I have this turkey that your sale ad says is free with a $100 purchase. I'm pretty sure I have that much. And I know alcohol doesn't count. I have a bottle of Wild Turkey that I'm not putting on the conveyor. We can do it at the end."

"Okay. Yeah. We'll leave it for last. I might have to ring it up separate."

"That's fine. I have 3 of these 12-pack Cokes for $12.00, and 3 of the Mountain Dews for $9.00. So I'll just set one of each up here for you to ring them up. Is that okay?"

"Sure." He turned to his trainee, who was bagging, to show him how to ring things in the future.

After scanning everything, my total was $120-something. Checker Dude said that was fine, to put the turkey on. He scanned it, and that 11.75-pound bird RANG UP AT THE REGULAR PRICE! Which I think was $15-and-something. Not really a good price, unless you get it FREE!

"Hey! Connie! It's doing it again. How did you fix it for me last time?"

Connie (not real name) came over from the service desk. She seemed perplexed (or maybe she's a good actor) about this dirty-trickery, and fiddled around at the register, and said, "Scan the alcohol." Which I had sitting on the conveyor, waiting for my turkey decision.

"I didn't scan it. The sale says alcohol doesn't count."

"Scan it." Connie dragged it across the scanner. My total jumped up to $140-something. "Oh. That didn't work." Connie stuck her thumb on a fingerprint scanner thingy which let her override the register [sheesh, Country Mart must be taking lessons from a certain bank with the thumbprint thingy!] and she took off the price of my turkey. However, Connie still did not tell Checker Dude how to solve this problem...

Checker Dude apologized to me, and took my debit card transaction, and handed me my receipt. The Trainee had been bagging my groceries and putting them in the cart. I took my receipt, and started off.

"MA'AM! MA'AM!"

I was only a couple steps away. Not even to the first lottery machine.

"MA'AM! Don't forget your turkey!"

There it was, on the end of the counter. Along with my (Hick's) bottle of Wild Turkey 101.

"Oh, no! I've forgotten the most important parts! MY TURKEYS!"

Seriously. It was that darn Trainee's job to put those in my cart! He put everything else in there. Anyhoo... I have a sneaking suspicion that if people don't ask about the FREE TURKEY, they don't get the FREE TURKEY. And some of them might THINK they got it, only to find out IF they take their receipt, that it was charged to them anyway.

I don't really trust Country Mart.