The nozzle on the end of my hose, the one with several different settings to allow for a jet stream or a mist with various options in-between, broke. It didn’t owe me anything, since I’d probably spent less than five dollars on it. Still it needed replacing . . .
“I’ve got a coupon for five dollars off at Tru-Value,” my husband, ever the bargain-hunter, said. “You can have it.”
So armed with the coupon I headed to the hardware store, only to have Earl yell a caveat as I pulled out of our garage. “You have to spend twenty-five dollars to get the five dollars off.” I should have known then and there this wouldn’t turn out well. But I also wanted a new hoe and the store in question had greeting cards, so I accepted his shout-out and assumed all would be fine.
I found the nozzle I wanted: a ten-dollar item on sale for five dollars. Then I found a suitable hoe and headed for the cash register, having calculated that I’d spent the requisite dollar amount for the coupon. I didn’t even check the greeting cards.
BUT, it turns out the fine print on the coupon doesn’t recognize sale items. That would be my nozzle. So I was five dollars short for using the coupon.
Did I do what I should have done, which was just purchase the nozzle at face value and forget the whole coupon thing? Of course not. Because, as I learned in a seminar once, what should have happened NEVER happens. Instead, I left the check-out line, found the greeting card section, and purchased just enough to redeem the coupon.
In the end, my on-sale nozzle cost me thirty-two dollars. Go figure!
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