{"id":4268,"date":"2022-07-20T22:41:08","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T02:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=4268"},"modified":"2022-07-20T22:41:08","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T02:41:08","slug":"a-shopping-bonus","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=4268","title":{"rendered":"“A Shopping Bonus”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bacon Scrapins<\/em><\/strong> are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the \u2018nutrition\u2019 needs searching for. This tale is a<\/em> bacon scrapin<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

My wife\u2019s what my Scottish grandma would have called \u201ca canny shopper\u201d!\u00a0 She checks the flyers and then makes lists. Not just one. Lists! Another for each store where there\u2019s the best deal for that item.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the week, we ventured into the city to that place where you\u2019ve got to pay for the card and show it at the entrance before they let you in to spend. I hoped there\u2019d be fewer folks early in the week. Nope \u2013 parking lot was packed as usual. She had 12 items on our list \u2013 those things where more or bigger is better. Most places you buy an item as a single. At the big C, each is twice as big or packed in 2\u2019s, 3\u2019s or 6\u2019s. Cheaper by the dozen I guess.<\/p>\n

You need a plan or a map in there. I\u2019m absolutely certain that they move stuff around every week, just to keep you guessing or so you\u2019ll put stuff in the cart that you didn\u2019t know you needed until you saw it, instead of what you were looking for. We had a simple plan. Walk up and down every aisle in sequence and hope we\u2019d find it all. Didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

My wife decided she needed to go back and look for stuff. I generously offered to stay put up against a tall rack of various snacks and wait for her.\u00a0 Standing still you get to check out your fellows.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t recognize anyone in there, but I was drawn to notice a couple doing their thing very efficiently. The husband pushed the cart and loaded whatever she directed. She, of flaming red hair tight in a barrette with a voice to be heard at the cash registers, operated her electric wheelchair like it was a dodgem car on a track at the fair. In and out between the buggies, up an aisle, stop \u00bd way, pull a tight 180\u00ba mid lane, zip back, then around the freezers\u2019 corner. All the time she\u2019s on her cell phone, toggling the controller with her other hand, asking a friend if she wanted her to pick up some chocolate-coated popcorn in a bag the size of softener salt, or some other rare item. She probably could cover the store three times and I would still have yet to find my way back to the registers – only once through. Good entertainment she was!<\/p>\n

We had 12 items in the cart when we finally got to the back corner, but still had only 4 items crossed off the list. Now I know why the average \u2018big C\u2019 shopper spends an average of $200 per trip and no one drives a cheap car. You\u2019ve got to have big money to afford to shop there when you come out with only 1\/3 of what you went in for and still left them with $150. Maybe not so canny after all?<\/p>\n

We live out a way, in a \u20189 stop-signs\u2019 sized community between a farm and a golf course \u2013 \u2018between the poop and a putt\u2019, so to speak. So, mid-week we drove the other direction into town to get the unfound stuff, plus those things on the other lists.<\/p>\n

It turns out, in each of the places we stopped, we remembered where the items were \u2013 nobody had tried to trick us since last week. We got all the other needed items at a total price \u2018the canny one\u2019 was satisfied with.\u00a0 And I got a bonus. Two, really.<\/p>\n

At my age, I know faces, but don\u2019t always remember the name that correctly matches that face. What were the bonuses?<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t fear getting run over in the aisles, and two, the gentleman in the drug store greeted me by my name.<\/p>\n

I prefer shopping locally!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bacon Scrapins are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the \u2018nutrition\u2019 needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin. My wife\u2019s what my Scottish grandma would have called \u201ca canny shopper\u201d!\u00a0 She checks the flyers and then makes lists. Not just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4072,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4268","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4269,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4268\/revisions\/4269"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}