OT - Math police [Archive] - Front Office Football Central

QuikSand

10-23-2003, 10:20 AM

We've had our conversations about the "grammar police" - people (like me) who notice when others manage to misuse words, puncuation, apostrophes and the like. (In a wholly self-serving gesture, I completely forgive simple typos that occur in a relaxed atmosphere - I'm far more focused on people who evidence that they simply don't know how to use the language) And the misuse of apostrophes, pronouns, and so forth is always good for a nice "venting" thread... but that's not exactly my purpose here.

As you may know (or may be able to guess), I am also the type of person who "does the math" instinctively in situations when most people won't bother. It's perhaps not as big a deal as the written word... but simple math does have the advantage of generally resulting in one correct, indisputable answer. And that raises opportunities to act as "math police" from time to time.

My recent case in point is a pretty minor one...

A local (I think) clothes store advertises on the radio station I visit frequently. They are the type who are alwsy haveing some monstrous sale, marking everyting down in seemingly drastic ways. This week, their big promotion is (essentially) this:

blah blah blah wool suits, originally priced at $495, now only $199! That's sixty per cent off!

Okay - so, I am the type who without even thinking reach the conclusion: no, it isn't! $495 down to $199 means that the savings are exactly $296... and while pretty close to 60%, it's not 60%, It's 59.8%, or thereabouts.

Okay, I admit that I don't care about this. Rounding off 59.8 to 60 isn't much of a big problem to me. But it technicaly isn't true. If 59.8 is okay, what about 57? What about 53? Math is funny that way - either it's correct or it isn't. You want to say "no big deal" but at what exact point does it become a big deal? There's only one well-defined point... and it's the point of being correct or not correct.

Anyway... no, my sense of perspective is not way out of whack. I don't really care about these guys rounding off to 60%. In fact, I have a much bigger issue with their completely phony original prices to begin with -- this is one of these outfits that always has some crazy-sounding sale, where everything is marked down by giant margins... esssentially giving away the fact that the suit we're talking about here is really just a cheap $200 suit, not a nice $500 suit that's suddenly selling cheaply. That, to me, is more dishonest than their forgivable math offense(s).

Since we are full of gearheads and quick minds in this lot (not entirely so, of course, but there's a pretty high density in this circle)... does anyone else find themselves doing the quick math when you hear about things like this in incidental ways? Anyone get really pissed off about this sort of thing?

oykib

10-23-2003, 10:24 AM

The $~99 or $~9.99 always annoys me.

I realize that it works. I've heard some nonsense about people being 50% more likely to buy something at $199.99 than $200 even. But it still annoys me.

FrogMan

10-23-2003, 10:26 AM

I don't really do the math (59.7 vs 60%), but I do the analysis about what place have overpriced regular prices and always show big %% savings.

Sears around here is like that. They show a very nice cordless dril, the 18V kind, and they say "50% OFF!!!" and when you compare their sales price with the regular price from most of the big hardware store, they are most of the time higher in price, even on sale... That pisses me off...

FM

Fido

10-23-2003, 10:26 AM

How about Ads that say "Save up to 50% or more"?

What aexactly ae they saying? You'll pay somewhere between regular price and $0.

FrogMan

10-23-2003, 10:30 AM

Fido, that or an ad that shows a nice picture of something for sale(say winter boots since it's snowing today around here) and it says in very small "prices starting at" and then show some very good price printed in bold, like "$19.99". That annoys me too...

FM

Poli

10-23-2003, 10:31 AM

I really hate gas pricing. I realize it was once important to have the tenth of a cent listed, but when is the last time anyone saw anything other than nine tenths listed?

Honestly, it makes me shake my head. On the way home from California, I stopped in Alpine, CA. There the local gas station had gas listed at 1.99 and 9/10.

What would you say? Would you say gas was listed at 1.99 or 2.00 a gallon? I imagine most of us would say 1.99.

Hogwash.

bryce

10-23-2003, 10:33 AM

what kills me is the day every year in dallas (and i'm sure elsewhere) when there is no sales tax on merchandise. the malls are mobbed, stores have lines, you can't get on the roads b/c the entire city is out shopping. and for what? it boils down to a 8.25% sale. i guarantee you if you saw an ad in the paper reading, "This Saturday only, all t-shirts 8% off," nobody would give two craps.

people... they're the worst...

Fido

10-23-2003, 10:34 AM

Originally posted by ardent enthusiast
I really hate gas pricing. I realize it was once important to have the tenth of a cent listed, but when is the last time anyone saw anything other than nine tenths listed?

Not to mention that if you buy a gallon of gas you'll always get overcharged. I want my tenth of a cent change damnit! :)

FrogMan

10-23-2003, 10:35 AM

Well, no tax sales in Quebec means a nice 15.025% off your tab... Welcome to taxland :(

FM

albionmoonlight

10-23-2003, 10:39 AM

When I am dragged to the mall to go shopping, I will pop my head in the department stores to see if they have any business casual (the uniform I am forced to wear) shirts on the ultra-clearance type racks. I can generally find some decent shirts for $15 or so. If not, then I'll get them next time.

I allow myself a small chuckle when I see that my "$15" shirt was initially priced at $70. I did, however, have a friend with me once who commented that she was suprised that the store would be willing to "lose so much money" by selling expensive shirts on clearance (a friend, I might add, who never considered looking at anything other than the clothes on display at full price). I commented that it would be hard for stores to exist as profit generating enterprises if they were selling shirts at a loss and that maybe these shirts cost the store less than the clearance prices. I think that I saw a little lightbulb go off in her head that day, but I am not quite sure.

QuikSand

10-23-2003, 10:40 AM

Yes... one of my favorites (this lies somewhere between grammar and math, I guess) is the advertisement: Up to 30% off.

Literal translation: We guarantee that nothing here is reduced by more than 30%.

Daimyo

10-23-2003, 10:43 AM

I always notice those kinds of deceptive sales gimmicks and its a big turn-off. My wife gets pretty annoyed sometimes because she's the type to get exicted by any mention of "sale" and I usually have to burst the bubble.

They're big turn-offs to me because everytime I see things like that I think "Is their product/price so unappealing that they feel they have to resort to gimmicks to get people to buy it?" I'm much more likely to buy the same product at a $200 regular price at store A than I am to by it at on sale for 60% off a $500 regular price at store B I think.

One example of this that always makes me laugh are mattress stores. Every single week they advertise a huge sale like its a once-a-year thing. I guess since people usually only buy a mattress once or twice a decade they don't notice this and the tactic works.

Butter

10-23-2003, 10:45 AM

Around here, it's common for the UDF (United Dairy Farmers for the non-locals) stores to advertise a sale on milk thusly:

Gallons of milk: 2/$5.00
Half-gallons: 2/$3.00

Better jump on those 2 half-gallons for $3! That's a deal! :rolleyes:

FrogMan

10-23-2003, 10:46 AM

Originally posted by QuikSand
Yes... one of my favorites (this lies somewhere between grammar and math, I guess) is the advertisement: Up to 30% off.

Literal translation: We guarantee that nothing here is reduced by more than 30%.

Exactly! Same as with my example with "prices starting at $19.99", you can translate it to nothing on this group of article is priced at less than $19.99... but the sky's the limit :)

FM

edit: typos...

FrogMan

10-23-2003, 10:48 AM

Originally posted by albionmoonlight
I think that I saw a little lightbulb go off in her head that day, but I am not quite sure.

Either that or she started to secretly cry, as if she were a 5 year old and you'd told her Santa doesn't really exist :D

FM

Daimyo

10-23-2003, 10:49 AM

That reminds me of another sale-related annoyance. Everytime my grocery store puts things on sale its always a 2-for-$x thing. The thing is you don't have to buy two to get the sale price, they just advertise it exclusively that way to get people to buy extra.

QuikSand

10-23-2003, 10:51 AM

Kohl's is a massive offender here, too. Walk into the store, and you are easily overwhelmed because fully 2/3 of the store at any time is "on sale." Anyone who buys anything ther at their non-sale prices deserves... well... they deserve to lose a few bucks, I guess.

Axxon

10-23-2003, 10:52 AM

Originally posted by QuikSand
We've had our conversations about the "grammar police" - people (like me) who notice when others manage to misuse words, puncuation, apostrophes and the like. (In a wholly self-serving gesture, I completely forgive simple typos that occur in a relaxed atmosphere - I'm far more focused on people who evidence that they simply don't know how to use the language) And the misuse of apostrophes, pronouns, and so forth is always good for a nice "venting" thread... but that's not exactly my purpose here.

One comment on the whole "police" thing. I, for one, am glad they exist. Some of us want to improve ourselves and the Gp and MP are a way to do it.

For years I've never been able to do the "definitely" thing correctly. It was a mental hang up and nothing phased it but from repeated catches by the GP on this board I now find myself catching this one before I make it.

Unfortunately, I've also found that I must have used this word more than anyone on this planet except for Raymond Babbitt. :D Believe it or not, I've worked on this too so for me, the GP has been a positive thing.

Of course, most people seem to get defensive when things like this are pointed out, which is sad. I just wanted all the GP and MP out there that some of us are appreciative of your efforts. There are still some who seek to improve themselves rather than push heavily for the most common denominator status simply because it lowers the bar to the point that Webster can step over it with ease.

Shit, now I'm beginning to sound like Dennis Miller. I better stop while I still can. :)

QuikSand

10-23-2003, 10:52 AM

Samdari

10-23-2003, 10:52 AM

Originally posted by Daimyo
One example of this that always makes me laugh are mattress stores. Every single week they advertise a huge sale like its a once-a-year thing. I guess since people usually only buy a mattress once or twice a decade they don't notice this and the tactic works.

I find this common in all furniture stores. Bought it the first time I furnished my living space too.

I spent most of my teen/early 20's wondering who was fooled by the whole "every price ends in .99" thing. I was convinced that it was obvious to everyone that something marked $7.99 was 8 dollars. Then I met the Mrs....

After going shopping with her a few times, I noticed that she was quoting prices by truncating to the whole dollar. She looked at the items marked 7.99 and would exclaim, "look, its only seven dollars" I remarked with some shock at work the next day, and discovered, in the informal, unscientific poll of the 5 married men discussing this phenomenon, that all their wives did the same, and they were equally baffled. I finally had my answer to the who fell for this question - women!

QuikSand

10-23-2003, 10:56 AM

Originally posted by Daimyo
That reminds me of another sale-related annoyance. Everytime my grocery store puts things on sale its always a 2-for-$x thing. The thing is you don't have to buy two to get the sale price, they just advertise it exclusively that way to get people to buy extra.

On this note, a local grocery (Giant Food) is starting to increasingly use even more complex variations of this theme. Not too long ago, I saw some sort of frozen dinner on sale for the thoroughly unweidly price of "5 for $7.85" -- really!

Someone had to think long and hard that "$1.59 each" or "2 for $3.00" weren't quite efefctive enough... but that the odd price of "5 for $7.85" had just the right combination of hard-to-calculate and incentive-to-buy-more that they were looking for.

I'd love to see what the marketing results were from that - wonder if they had tons of customer buying five at a time, maybe selling more than if they had put them on sale for $1.50 each.

Ksyrup

10-23-2003, 10:56 AM

Originally posted by Samdari
After going shopping with her a few times, I noticed that she was quoting prices by truncating to the whole dollar. She looked at the items marked 7.99 and would exclaim, "look, its only seven dollars" I remarked with some shock at work the next day, and discovered, in the informal, unscientific poll of the 5 married men discussing this phenomenon, that all their wives did the same, and they were equally baffled. I finally had my answer to the who fell for this question - women!

Yep, same with my wife. Even better, when the price is something like $1,999, she says it costs $1,900. Not that I'm complaining, since I've used that "nu-math" to my advantage when I sense reluctance to buy a big-ticket item.

QuikSand

10-23-2003, 10:57 AM

Originally posted by Samdari
Then I met the Mrs....

And isn't that basically the punchline to all these phony-pricing things?

QuikSand

10-23-2003, 11:00 AM

One of my favorite quotes from the old TV show "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist" (Comedy Central gem, cartooned in that weird shaky-vision look) -- paraphrased:

Dr Katz: So, you want to buy and breed potbelly pigs?
Son Ben: That's right, read about it in an ad from Rolling Stone
Katz: And, how much will this cost?
Ben: Um.. I'ts twenty nine...ninety nine...ninety nine...
Katz: Can you round that off for me?
Ben: Two thousand dollars.

Butter

10-23-2003, 11:00 AM

Poli

10-23-2003, 11:00 AM

I used to chuckle when my wife said such and such was "on sale".

Really, how many stores do you not walk into that don't have "on sale" sign somewhere?

Yet, they attract my wife like football attracts me. :)

On my flight from Singapore to Tokyo, I sat with a gentleman who was kind enough to explain to me some marketing ploys and tips. I was genuinely fascinated as he talked about his job in marketing. He explained to me, for example, that you're most likely to buy a product when with friends or family than you are by yourself.

Poli

10-23-2003, 11:03 AM

Perhaps way off topic, but one the best things in life for me over the past couple of years is talking to telemarketers offering insurance.

Obviously, they don't know my wife's an insurance agent when they call. I'll drag the call out, tell them that sounds great, but let me ask my wife...she's an agent, after all.

Click.

Hello? Hello?

cthomer5000

10-23-2003, 11:07 AM

Originally posted by QuikSand
And isn't that basically the punchline to all these phony-pricing things?

I really think it is. Can you police this equation for me?

Woman + Sale = DANGER!

Axxon

10-23-2003, 11:08 AM

Originally posted by QuikSand
On this note, a local grocery (Giant Food) is starting to increasingly use even more complex variations of this theme. Not too long ago, I saw some sort of frozen dinner on sale for the thoroughly unweidly price of "5 for $7.85" -- really!

Someone had to think long and hard that "$1.59 each" or "2 for $3.00" weren't quite efefctive enough... but that the odd price of "5 for $7.85" had just the right combination of hard-to-calculate and incentive-to-buy-more that they were looking for.

I'd love to see what the marketing results were from that - wonder if they had tons of customer buying five at a time, maybe selling more than if they had put them on sale for $1.50 each.

1. If this is the giant chain I remember form my youth in Virginia then I simply will always love them to death. Don't worry, I have my reasons and as irrational as they may be, they have nothing to do with the store's odd marketing strategies. :)

Now, I am one who DOES do the math but I "usually" buy the "recommended" quantities anyway.

Why?

It's way easier to prove in a dispute. I'm not kidding when I say that I had to send at least 3-5 items back for a price check at my local Winn Dixie per weekly visit. It has certainly ( not definitely hehe ) affected how I shop. This is the same store where I once bought 2 limes at 4 for a dollar and literally had to say "50 cents?" to the cashier after I told him the price. I'm not dealing with top of the barrel stuff here.

I found that if I just buy the recommended amount of an item then the price checks go WAY easier so I'm out of the store quicker and as you've mentioned, time is money and this works very well for me.

Yes, it's sad, but I don't think the effectiveness of the marketing gimmick takes the underdeveloped skills of the work force into effect...or does it??

Axxon

10-23-2003, 11:10 AM

Originally posted by QuikSand
One of my favorite quotes from the old TV show "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist" (Comedy Central gem, cartooned in that weird shaky-vision look) -- paraphrased:

Dr Katz: So, you want to buy and breed potbelly pigs?
Son Ben: That's right, read about it in an ad from Rolling Stone
Katz: And, how much will this cost?
Ben: Um.. I'ts twenty nine...ninety nine...ninety nine...
Katz: Can you round that off for me?
Ben: Two thousand dollars.

Damn, I loved that episode and that line in particular. :)

Bee

10-23-2003, 11:30 AM

I was looking to buy another Tivo the other day and went to amazon.com. It was listed at $199.99, I kept surfing and forgot to pick it up. The next day I went back and saw they had a $50 mail in rebate. I thought that would be nice. I went to get the Tivo and it was now $249.99. I didn't buy it just because it pissed me off so much.

KWhit

10-23-2003, 11:40 AM

Originally posted by cthomer5000
I really think it is. Can you police this equation for me?

Woman + Sale = DANGER!

So what you're saying is this:

Sale = 0

FrogMan

10-23-2003, 11:50 AM

Originally posted by Samdari
I spent most of my teen/early 20's wondering who was fooled by the whole "every price ends in .99" thing. I was convinced that it was obvious to everyone that something marked $7.99 was 8 dollars. Then I met the Mrs....

After going shopping with her a few times, I noticed that she was quoting prices by truncating to the whole dollar. She looked at the items marked 7.99 and would exclaim, "look, its only seven dollars" I remarked with some shock at work the next day, and discovered, in the informal, unscientific poll of the 5 married men discussing this phenomenon, that all their wives did the same, and they were equally baffled. I finally had my answer to the who fell for this question - women!

On this, I gotta say I have married one good little lady. See, she's a mechanical engineer, so she's seen a bit of math in her college times. She sees something at 9.99, she won't go to the $9 round down, she'll say straight up "darn $10 is too expensive" :) That is nice, and the fact she doesn't like to go shopping :D No impulsive buys or anything like this...

FM

cthomer5000

10-23-2003, 12:22 PM

Originally posted by KWhit
So what you're saying is this:

Sale = 0

:)

Samdari

10-23-2003, 12:34 PM

Originally posted by FrogMan
On this, I gotta say I have married one good little lady. See, she's a mechanical engineer, so she's seen a bit of math in her college times. She sees something at 9.99, she won't go to the $9 round down, she'll say straight up "darn $10 is too expensive" :) That is nice, and the fact she doesn't like to go shopping :D No impulsive buys or anything like this...

FM

My wife completed the coursework for a Ph.D. in Economics. That brings her roughly to the level of math skills as a BS Engineer. In any other circumstance, she is very mathematically adept. She is not even shopping crazy (in fact, generally avoids it). Yet, she truncates prices. It is really a phenomenon I do not understand.

Originally posted by QuikSand
And isn't that basically the punchline to all these phony-pricing things?

LOL, it seems to be.

Maple Leafs

10-23-2003, 12:47 PM

Here's my math-related pet peeve: the use of the word "over".

I can understand using it with big round numbers: "over 100 flavors", "over 200 channels", etc.

But don't insult my intelligence by telling me some game has "over 16 levels" or something has "over 16 new feature". In other words, um... 17.

cuervo72

10-23-2003, 12:49 PM

Originally posted by QuikSand
Kohl's is a massive offender here, too. Walk into the store, and you are easily overwhelmed because fully 2/3 of the store at any time is "on sale." Anyone who buys anything ther at their non-sale prices deserves... well... they deserve to lose a few bucks, I guess.

Department stores like Hechts and JC Penny do this too (as well as Macy's, Bon Ton....etc.). They basically keep a whole stack of "sale" tags in the little sale holders that they have and they just rotate them. Complete scam.

And those supermarkets...yeah, they'd have you buying 14 of everything. What annoys me more is a) the fact that you need a special discount card to even get the sale prices, and b) some chains (such as Safeway) will ring up everything at the regular price and compute the sales prices at the end of the transaction. I much prefer to see the regular price flash, then see "-$x.xx" immediately afterwards. Because at any given time they may have "forgotten" to enter a sale into the system, or the sale is actually on a similar item but not the one being bought.

HornedFrog Purple

10-23-2003, 01:02 PM

I just get the wife to buy stuff. Then I blame her.

GrantDawg

10-23-2003, 02:14 PM

My wife hardly ever shops and almost never impulse buys. As a matter of fact, there are many times I have to force her to buy something she desperately needs. I know I'm the luckiest guy on Earth. :)

FrogMan

10-23-2003, 02:18 PM

Originally posted by GrantDawg
My wife hardly ever shops and almost never impulse buys. As a matter of fact, there are many times I have to force her to buy something she desperately needs. I know I'm the luckiest guy on Earth. :)

Then there's two of us. I too have to bug her to go buy most of the stuff she needs. I also heckle the hell out of her when she finally decides to go buy it, saying stuff like "oh no, gonna have to take that second (or third, or fourth, ...) mortgage" :D

FM

QuikSand

10-23-2003, 03:45 PM

Another along similar lines:

A (hideous) new development of luxury condos posted a sign promoting their forthcoming units for sale. Prominently featured was an indication that the prices would be "From the Low 480's." (Yes, I'm sure it had an apostrophe, too)

Okay - I understand that for a homebuyer looking at a starter house (in a more affordable area than this one, by the way), that the phrase "The low 80s" might have some value - because 82k might be affordable, and 88K might not. But is there really anyone who says "Yeah, I could have gone to $482K, but when they wanted $488K, we had to walk away from the deal."

henry296

10-23-2003, 03:47 PM

FrogMan

10-23-2003, 04:09 PM

Originally posted by henry296
The coupons are notorious for the same thing like $1 off 2 boxes of cereal. However, in this case I believe you do have to buy 2 to get the discount.

Todd

It's the case around here at least. If there's a coupon and the coupon says "2 for $3.99" while the regular price would have been 2 for $4.99, you haev to buy two to use the coupon...

FM

henry296

10-23-2003, 04:18 PM

GrantDawg

10-23-2003, 04:25 PM

Originally posted by QuikSand
Another along similar lines:

A (hideous) new development of luxury condos posted a sign promoting their forthcoming units for sale. Prominently featured was an indication that the prices would be "From the Low 480's." (Yes, I'm sure it had an apostrophe, too)

Okay - I understand that for a homebuyer looking at a starter house (in a more affordable area than this one, by the way), that the phrase "The low 80s" might have some value - because 82k might be affordable, and 88K might not. But is there really anyone who says "Yeah, I could have gone to $482K, but when they wanted $488K, we had to walk away from the deal."

What is worse is that there is only one unit that is like 482,999, and everything else in the complex is 495+. That was aggravating when I was looking for my house. (Not that I was looking in that price range :)).

Godzilla Blitz

10-23-2003, 04:32 PM

A little sidetrack, but when I worked as a supermarket stockboy in high school, we had a boatload of discontinued soda that we couldn't sell for weeks. One day I made the price sign bigger and added, "Limit 6 bottles per customer". We cleared all the soda out in a week.

I'm not sure of the moral of the story, but it was pretty funny watching all the customers that had 6 bottles at the register.

SplitPersonality1

10-23-2003, 09:05 PM

Originally posted by KWhit
So what you're saying is this:

Sale = 0

Best. Post. Ever.

That was milk out of the nose funny.

Kevin

10-24-2003, 09:03 AM

My favourite example is an independant department store near that three weeks out of the month has 20% off store wide. The fourth week is obviously to tell everyone to stay away while they restock or assign vacations.

Abe Sargent

10-24-2003, 11:19 AM

I was in a local convienance store on campus. I needed some change for a phone call, and so I walked in to see what they have, since they have a strict no change policy.

There was a sign for discounted candy that read 2/$0.75. I picked up a piece of candy (Skittles I think) and headed for the register.

They tried to charge me $0.70 for the one piece of candy. I mentioned gently and kindly that it should be 37 or 38 cents plus tax, not 70 cents, because I picked it up at the 2/75 cents display.

She then informed me that the price for individual candy from that display was 70 cents, and that I only received the deal if I purchased two pieces of candy. You could see the display from the register, and I pointed out to her that the sign had no additional information on price, just "2 for $0.75."

She refused to sell me the candy for 41 cents (price after tax) so I summoned the manager and asked kindly that he charge me the listed price.

He refused to as well, and for the next ten minutes we argued about the price of the Skittles. There were customers backed up and everything. Finally, to get rid of me, he charged me the 41 cents, and I happily left the store with my 59 cents of change and made my phone call.

-Anxiety

lurker

10-24-2003, 03:54 PM

Getting back on the subject of math annoyances, it always bugs me when something is said to work "within seconds." I guess they're trying to say it's really fast, but you can convert any unit of time to seconds! It could take years for that medicine or whatever to kick in, but since they say "in seconds" idiots will think it's gotta be less than a minute.

Also, I hate it when people say "Do the math" when there's no math involved. Ugh. It's such an awful phrase and they could just as easily say "Think about it" or "Figure it out." Since I actually do do math all day and think it's fun and challenging I hate having everything under the sun categorized as math.

I hate the "From $10" sales rack too. Who are they kidding with that?

bryce

10-24-2003, 04:02 PM

Originally posted by Anxiety
I was in a local convienance store on campus. I needed some change for a phone call, and so I walked in to see what they have, since they have a strict no change policy.

There was a sign for discounted candy that read 2/$0.75. I picked up a piece of candy (Skittles I think) and headed for the register.

They tried to charge me $0.70 for the one piece of candy. I mentioned gently and kindly that it should be 37 or 38 cents plus tax, not 70 cents, because I picked it up at the 2/75 cents display.

She then informed me that the price for individual candy from that display was 70 cents, and that I only received the deal if I purchased two pieces of candy. You could see the display from the register, and I pointed out to her that the sign had no additional information on price, just "2 for $0.75."

She refused to sell me the candy for 41 cents (price after tax) so I summoned the manager and asked kindly that he charge me the listed price.

He refused to as well, and for the next ten minutes we argued about the price of the Skittles. There were customers backed up and everything. Finally, to get rid of me, he charged me the 41 cents, and I happily left the store with my 59 cents of change and made my phone call.

-Anxiety

dude, two words: cell phone
they're even pretty cheap these days.
although i must admit i never had one in school, either...