Making It Plain

Last week I went to the store to purchase some lotion (among a few other things). I went to the aisle where I knew it would be and saw it. Just before picking it up, right next to my usual brand, there was the store version with a sale price underneath it. It was $2.00 cheaper and was buy one get one free. How bad could the store brand be? I chose it but in picking it up, I saw there was the only one on the shelf. Still, putting it into my cart, it was $2.00 cheaper. Finishing the rest of my shopping, I went to the cashier. When he got to my lotion, I told him of the dilemma to quickly fix the problem. He ran the price checker over the bottle and said,"You're right." Did he do what I thought he was going to do? Call the stock person in the back to supply the demand and bring a bottle to the front? No, instead of reaching for the phone, he picked up a laminated paper, with some writing on it and said to me, " What I can do is reduce the price even further." He

I went with my co-worker on an out trip to a large outlet mall. We shopped for a couple of hours and then went to get something to eat at a restaurant. We were brought 3 menus a piece and it wasn't long before the waitress asked for our order. We needed more time to go over everything. There was so much to choose from, I just quickly decided on a hamburger to let the anguish go. How can you mess up with a hamburger? We received our food after some time and it looked appetizing enough. I cut my burger in half before taking a bite. It was juicy, seemingly fresh, but there was something familiar about it that didn't make me stop eating it. After about the fourth bite, I realized that the chef makes hamburgers like my mother used to...only, my Mom made hamburgers on a shoe string budget. Often there were fillers in the burgers and they were always fried in the grease of the other burgers. I didn't know any better. I was a child. When we became older, the budget increased and