24 (Cents)

The following took place between 4:50 pm and 5:30 pm on March 6th, 2006.

The name of the store is witheld for legal purposes. You'll see why in a minute.

Having been raised from a middle-class household my parents quickly taught me the ability, and balue, of bargain hunting. My most notable bargain was obtaining not one, but two sets of golf clubs with bags for $10 each at two respective yard sales. Around here bargain hunting has both a positive and negative effect. Positive, in that you save money for other priorities and buy bargain stuff that has the same quality as a higher priced item, and negative in that over time you come to the assumption that everything in life can be purchased at Big Lots.

I missed that last part thankfully.

Today however was quite possibly the bargain to end all bargains, taking place at a local department store that for all sets and purposes is depressing to shop and work at. I can stand Wal-Mart for 10 mins. Here at "Dump-O-Mart", it's more like 5. Now don't get me wrong, I don't outright hate the place; I just choose not to shop there for my self-esteem's sake. The reason why I'm in there in the first place is to purchase a choice 2-liter product of the Pepsi or Coca-Cola company, and not 39 cents for Mountain Farms Root Beer that interestingly enough was made in a farm on a mountain. Probably.

When you know a mass amount of a certain product is being shelved in a shopping cart it usually spells disaster, Washington Spelling Bee on ESPN style. However, I had come across the motherfrigginload.

Roughly 20, 2-liter bottles of Coke.

With the christmas packaging.

expired for one month.

50 cents.

Now 50 cents alone for a product that averages around $1 is good, but here's where things get better. On each bottle was a sticker for 50 cents off the bottle you are purchasing. The coupon, was valid. Thereby, all I had to pay total was the sales tax on each bottle, which at 6% PA sales tax costed me only 3 cents per 2-liter bottle. 4 regulars and 4 diets later, and I had 16-liters of carbonated liquid refreshment for a total of 24 cents.

Thank you Dump-O-Mart.

Now of course you're probably thinking that the stuff tastes flat and I'm a moron for buying expired Coke. You would be incorrect. Consider that when Coke and Pepsi are respectively bottled, they stay sealed until someone opens them. The approximate time for Coke to lose its fizz while still sealed is about 6 months. Thus, it's still good.

But at 3 cents a bottle this is a retail anomaly. A once-in-a-blue-balls event. This must be taken advantage of.

(DING!)

I need a roll of Mentos, a plastic tube, a lab coat, and a camcorder.