Finding a Bargain

Finding a Bargain ©

By

Michael Casey

We all like a bargain and some may say our wives and lovers are the best bargain we ever make, especially when you get 2 for the price of one. I was listening to Abba’s The Visitors album again on Spotify hence the opening remark. There is a song on the album about a lonely hearts advert, just go listen to the album.

What I’m really going to talk about are shopping bargains, I should remind you I did work for ACNielsen for many a year. Though I was just the paper stacker in the computer room, and a bit more. ACNielsen will explain about shopping habits they live in Oxford, Headington to be exact, that’s if memory serves. There was that plastic shark sticking out of a roof of a house nearby, I remember that and the company sports day.

Anyway Market research types like to talk about varieties of shoppers, just as bird watchers divide birds up by plumage and mating habits. Old Mrs Smith is a hoarder, she may have been a whore once before, but for the purposes of market research, and she really knew her market, by hoarder we mean she takes advantage of the market. If there is a sale of crisps she will buy as many as she can carry, even the horrid smoky bacon flavour that she hates. Not because she has a religious objection to bacon, but because nobody can get the taste right. Smokey bacon should be against the Geneva Convention.

So she hoards whatever is on sale, she just cannot resist a bargain, that’s what they said about her in the war, but she was just doing her duty as she said to the Magistrate. He gave her a ride home in fact, but we’ll just leave that there. People like bargains and their brain disconnects when they think they are getting a bargain.

 I bought 10 packets of sage and onion stuffing, even though you don’t ever stuff a chicken. I bought 10 pints of milk even though I live alone, because it was 1/2 price and only 1 day left on the use by label. So you end up giving it to all the neighboring cats, and all the children think you are a witch, which is fine as it keeps them from loitering around your council house. We thought there was a witch living near our local park when we were kids, I’ve just remembered that, but in those days everybody had a milkman who came to your door. If you google Ernie The Milkman by Bennie Hill you will have a treat, I used to play rugby with Garry Marshall and he was a milkman’s son.

People are stupid and buy one because they get one free, even though they don’t really like the product. Now what kind of shopper do you think I am? Yes I buy all the bargains, such are 3 for 2 or buy three and save money. However I will eat and enjoy all and every morsel, my eating habits have improved these past 3 months and the level of crud in my bloodstream has slightly improved according to my latest blood tests. Quality food does cost more but the taste is so much better and it does seem to have improved slightly my health, and my daughter did get great exam results, was it the better food?

Online is King too, buy your Winter clothes in Summer, and your Summer clothes in Winter, just as the shops want to strangle the buyer for buying too much in the first place. You are saving a life and you make great friends with the courier. Courier employment is a major growth industry and the boys and girls really do work hard.

Toilet paper is a big thing in our house, yes I have a great big arse, you are all so kind, but so does Donald Trump, look next time he is on tv, and decide who is the bigger arse, me or him? Ckd means I use more, so we buy in bulk 48 rolls at a time Costco. My wife said I was using too much, I asked did she want me to use both sides, or maybe hang it on the washing line then use it twice. Yes an old joke of my brother’s from 50 years ago. To save my wife time I discover a bargain online and we got 108 rolls in 18 roll jumbo packets plus free kitchen roll. We were sitting, I said sitting, on jumbos for weeks  until we had room in our pantry to store it.

Yes a jumbo mistake really, but toilet paper never goes to waste. And we got 30, yes 30 free rolls of kitchen towel too, personally I’d use the kitchen towel on my bum too, but my girls like paper towels for their hands. Should the 108 rolls of toilet paper run out unexpectedly then, my girls will just have to dry their hands on Totoro our cat.

I never waste anything either, if I buy it I eat it all, yes I know you all kind of guessed that by the size of my stomach. If you are poor you don’t waste a thing, and if there is anything left over the cat and dog can fight well like cat and dogs over it. See we are very ecological in our house, well the Christmas turkey had o be shared by 13 after all. And when was the last time you heard of a supper shared by 13?