I got tricked while trying to treat myself the day after Halloween. Normally on November 1st, I scour the nearby grocery stores and drug stores looking for Halloween candy that has been marked down by to 50% off. The stores are trying to clear stuff off the shelves so they can put out the Christmas displays, and I mean that literally. As I'm perusing the shelves, there is a a guy putting out the red and green stuff. There are always a few things left, like M&M's and Snickers fun size bars- things that taste exactly the same as the non-Halloween version but that happen to be packaged in a wrapper with now-passe pumpkin designs. So I stock up when I find these prefectly delicious treats (and some less delicious things like candy corn.)
What I didn't notice until halfways out the door of Safeway was that they put some regular priced items on the shelves with the discounted stuff. Since I made the stop on my way to work, I didn't feel like going back and disputing the price. It's not like a customer carelessly put something back in the wrong place- there were several dozen bags of the regular priced (yet autumnally packaged) Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I considered that a fluke and proceeded along to CVS where I really scored- vanilla Tootsie rolls, Kit Kats, and Hershey mini bars. Six bags of things for $10. I don't need to buy any more candy until next spring (Well, unless I see some good things on sale the day after Christmas.)
That was a great deal so just to finish the rounds, I hit a Rite-Aid on the way home from work. I picked up some more M&M's, Twizzler's minis and some Autumn Mix (i.e. candy corn, but the brown tipped ones- which actually tastes better- plus there are the pumpkin ones in the bags too.) I also brought some more Kit Kat's to the counter along with the new Snicker's Squares but I didn't buy them. Can you guess why? No, not because of self-control around sweets. That's not likely. It was because they were full-priced! Again, the person who set up the discount rack put several rows of regular priced items in with the discount stuff. It was turning out to be a trend, not a fluke like I thought. I then had to wonder- did the person doing this forget to change the SKU in the computer or did they deliberately do it to increase sales from people who didn't notice the difference? For a second, I thought that maybe they were trying to keep the shelf looking full but then realized that they could have done that just using the sale candy since there was certainly enough of it, even if half of it was candy corn.
So in reality they were try to dupe me, to trick me. I found it vaguely ironic considering the holiday being celebrated but I still thought it was wrong to do that. Treats shouldn't come with strings attached, unless they are those chocolate foil wrapped Christmas tree ornaments. I wish I was the type to raise a fuss because I dislike having a bait-and-switch pulled on me, even if it is delicious bait.
