Fiscal Fiasco [10.26.08]

This weekend was epic, for it was the weekend that Michael's craft store was having a blow-out sale. It took no time for my mom to plan a road trip by rounding up a bunch of her girlfriends. Since I'm no party pooper, I decide to jump on the bandwagon. When we arrived, the motion-sensor doors of Michael's was the first thing to greet us. We instantly broke in an amoeba-like fashion, some of us to the scrapbooking section, and others to the seasonal aisles. After an hour or two of shopping, we collectively head toward the registers with our purchases. My mom's friend was first, and the only thing holding her back was an elderly woman with one item. It sounds easy enough, but then the item does not scan, so the employee has to type in it's UPC code. The item comes up regular price, despite the four-inch, "highlighter yellow" sale sticker hanging off the tag. In my head I can picture the old woman ranting and raving about how her artificial pine wreath should be on sale, but then the strangest thing happened. What I was picturing in my head actually happened. The old bat took shook one wrinkly little finger at the computer as her other hand waived the sale sticker for all to see. The whole occurrence was ridiculous, and surprisingly yielded results. The employee was scolded in front of everyone, while the elderly woman paid even less for her wreath than what she would have paid to begin with. I left perplexed; perhaps I underestimated the true power of the elderly.