I Could Be President

A few years ago there was a lot of commotion about the president being surprised by scanners at the supermarket check out. He was also derided for not knowing how much a gallon of milk cost.

Now, I've seen scanners since they came around. Heck, I help with the grocery shopping every week - and, no, I ain't looking for no medal.

But when it comes to some prices, I don't know what they are ... except for my rice cakes when I'm standing before the display.

This morning I ran out for milk and orange juice. A gallon of 2 percent lowfat milk and two half gallons of pulp orange juice, if you're keeping track.

Going in I didn't know if ten bucks would cover it.

So, I took a twenty out and headed to the far reaches of the nearby Acme store.

I past not one, but two wily coyote's shopping in the contraption aisle before I got to the farthest corner where they store the milk, bread and juice.

I didn't need any bread, except to pay with, so to speak. But there were so many orange juices my head started to spin.

So, getting back to my earlier point, I didn't know going in how much a half-gallon of pulp orange juice would be. It was $3.99

But I don't know if that's high or not. But that doesn't really matter, because I had two things on my list and pulp orange juice is one of them, and I grab two @ $3.99.

The milk was next to the orange juice. Did you know that a gallon of 2 percent lowfat milk costs $3.99?

My math may be a bit rusty, but that's half as much as pulp orange juice. You can't mix them becuase orange juice is lousy in your coffee.

With my Valued Customer card I got a $1.49 off on each orange juice and the bill came to $8.99

In the long run, $10 would have covered it, but I didn't know that going in.

I bagged my OJ & milk and headed for a cup of coffee ($1.30) and a buttered Italian roll, and a copy of the Friday edition of the Wall Street Journal, and some Mega tickets for tonight's drawing.

That too, totalled under $10.

And that is how I started the first day of my vacation, more or less.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.