$12.50 for An Extra Five Minutes of My Time

My husband and I are leaving the cat behind for the weekend and before I get into the car and drive away I always pile his food bowl to the brim, clean out his bowls and top them off with clean water. While I was downstairs I noticed that he was running low on dry food so I ran out to the grocery store to buy him some.

While I was at the store I figured I might as well pick up a couple of other items that were on sale. After all I had a few extra minutes and a wad full of coupons that were only days away from expiring.

I moved quickly through the isles. I gathered up all of the items I needed and headed for the checkout. I usually watch over the checkout screen, but I was distracted by a very nice woman who was helping to bag my groceries. As I stepped out of line I glanced through my receipt and found a number of items that did not ring up at the sale price.

I was annoyed, but I know this happens, so I kindly walked up to the customer service counter and waited for my turn. I explained that a number of items did not ring up appropriately and the store manager asked me to retrieve the items from the bag and show her on the receipt. I did this for a number of items and when all was said and done she refunded $7.50.

Although I don’t keep a perfect tab of how much money I’ll owe by the time I reach the checkout I still felt the overall total was quite high. I put the groceries in my car, sat in the driver’s seat and reviewed the receipt once more.

After further review I noticed that some of my coupons failed to ring up appropriately, some did not double and a few of the ‘buy me free’ coupons were missing all together. So I climbed out of the car, opened the trunk and rooted through the grocery bags until I found all of the items in question. Luckily, I’d only bought three bags worth of groceries.

I gathered up the receipt and my bags of groceries and returned to the customer service desk one more time where I waited patiently in line behind a couple of folks buying lottery tickets. When I got to the counter I apologized to the clerk and told her there were a couple of other items that weren’t correct and that a couple of coupons were missing.

I could tell she was slightly annoyed with me, but she listened to my request and promptly processed the changes, which resulted in another $5 worth of refunds. I wish I’d watched the checkout screen more closely the first time around but I’m glad that I took an extra five minutes out of my day to correct the problem.

When all was said and done the store manager refunded $12.50, which was 15% of the original bill!