A thousand dollars of groceries? - a FOFC puzzle
 

Recently*, I was dispatched by Mrs. Q to fetch some things at the local supermarket to help her with an upset stomach. I made my quick store run, grabbed her items (and a couple for me), and went to a self-checkout station.

Then, this happened...



So, the puzzle is... give the full explanation for what happened here.




* true story**

** i miss the days when I used to think of posting puzzles here all the time***

*** but i'm confident this will end up a train wreck like usual

Since it is labeled as produce I'm guessing you were leaning on the scale while it tallied up a head of lettuce or something?

I was going to say sitting on the scale but yeah something that cost like 5.25/lb or so.

I have no idea how self-checkout machines work, but do you have to enter a PIN or other code at any point? And if so, did you mistakenly enter that when it was actually asking you how many ears of corn (or whatever) you had?

Recently*, you were dispatched by Mrs. Q to fetch some things at the local supermarket to help her with an upset stomach. You made a quick store run, grabbed her items (and a couple for yourself), and went to a self-checkout station. And they fucked up your receipt.

You paid the "stupid husband" tax of $940 for buying your wife with an upset stomach a bunch of beans.

You were asked to pick up some truffles. She meant chocolate truffles, you bought black truffles.

When I go through self checkout, there is a code that you have to enter before it weighs fruit, so it knows which fruit you are weighing. So I was thinking maybe he hit the wrong code, but I can't imagine what fruit would be listed that high.

What do you make with ginger ale, baked beans, and green beans?

Looks like the computer is trying to convert something to Celsius there at the bottom but I can't make it out clearly. Not sure if puzzle or eye test.

Maybe he just bought $1,000 worth of groceries?

Looks like a Giant mistake.

She accidentally weighed her bag, which was filled with gold cougarans.

Next time you need beans and ginger ale, probably better not to go to the Nigerian Royalty Grocery. Those "Bonuscards" are part of a pretty standard 419 scam. You'll notice that "419" is actually part of your customer number, and the other three digits, 065, can be re-written "GOS", which is the Nigerian word for ginger ale (kind of an Americanized word for relieving gas pressure).

I'm guessing you bought some organic bananas, and the scanner accidentally botched the scan of your purchase, throwing it into the "generic" produce barcode. Instead of the manually typed in price it was inspecting, you scanned the bananas again and the five digit PLU was entered as the price of the generic produce product.

The system knew your wife had an upset stomach, so it automatically added the new 'Obamacare' surcharge. I heard about this happening to other people on the Intartubez.

And there you have it. Computer glitch on their end - I just scanned a sticker, and it came up not as code #94011 (organic bananas) but $940.11.

I'm guessing because your wife wasn't there you gave in and bought a huge screen TV, attempting to disguise the purchase as 'Produce' ... :D

My serious guess:

Recently is a clue. Mushroom season is usually in the Feb. to Apr. time frame. Based on the note on the screen of a 30lb maximum, QS bought a pricey variety of the tasty fungus, and it mistakenly weighed in at the maximum.

edit: or, the answer as given by QS while I was typing up this post. :)

You are also shopping for ten hungry but illogical lions, and $940 is the going rate of one sheep.

how to fudge a grocery receipt

I have to overring sales because of that problem so often at work.

n00b cashiers 4 lyfe, bitchez!

Same here, but you also have the option of picking what produce you have from the menu.

I would guess being a former produce manager when I was younger that it's some type of banana. 4011 is a banana product look up code.

{produce}
Qty: 9
Code: 4011 (banana)
{enter}

Instead of {enter}, QS hit the wrong key, registering it as the total dollar amount for generic produce.

and since Quik is a baller, he peeled off 10 crisp, hundred dollar bills, left them on the counter, and casually strolled out of the store

/former produce manager
/had no clue

quality callback

Damn you grocery store Magellans with your PLU knowledge mapping.

or he bought saffron.

9 in the first digit of a 5-digit produce number indicates organic.

...as the early guesses were coming in, that did occur to me also.

I had this nailed pretty much immediately, but apparently so did several others.

So, screw you guys, I'm going home.

Organic? Well why didn't you say so in the first place. That's probably just the correct price then.

Actually, as I called over the person for help, I offered something like "hey, I'm willing to pay more for organic stuff, I get that, but NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS IS A LITTLE RIDICULOUS." Which was, of course, completely lost on her.

Hehe...train wreck of hilarity more like.

Since this puzzle is already solved, I am hijacking this thread for grocery store customer service. I worked retail (Home Depot, Circuit City, etc) for 15+ years and I just can't believe the total lack of customer service at the Kroger and Meijer grocery stores in my area. I am not asking for a back massage, but a friendly hello and "thanks for shopping at Kroger" would be nice. When I scan an alcoholic beverage, why does it take you 10 minutes to end your conversation with your fellow employee and walk the 7 feet to my self checkout station? Pretty bad when their best employee is the self checkout computer. Just seems like a total lack of training and management oversight. Maybe its just my local stores.

I must be lucky. I don't have that problem at my local Winco, Sprouts, Ralphs, etc.