Balancing Act

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So last night we embark on our all too frequent pilgrimage to the pet supply store. Five dogs plow through 40lb of kibble at an alarming rate. So alarming that we dare not run out for fear of waking up one morning to one or more pups gnawing on a limb. They aren’t exactly a patient bunch when it comes to matters involving food (clearly they all take after me).

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It’s a challenge finding dog food with the “good” ingredients that doesn’t cost as much as a Hyundai. As a result, we usually wind up going fairly far afield to get the hounds’ beloved Canidae (a premium kibble. No grocery store brands for these pampered pooches!). However, with a gallon of gas now WAY north of any number I don’t think is usury, I called a store much closer than the one I usually go to to get a price on the 40# bag of Canidae. The girl checked, came back and told me $38.99. I even asked her to repeat it. It’s a $1 more per bag than where we usually go, but I thought the savings in gas would make up for it. So off DH and I went.

We got there and the place was deserted. Four employees, no customers. We went back to the Canidae and saw these stickers on all the bags. The stickers said that there had been a $2 coupon on the bag, so since you were reading this, the coupon was gone and talk to the manager about it. So we grabbed a bag, went to the checkout and talked to the manager on duty. He told us that “corporate” had told them to take all the coupons off the bags.

You know what this means, don’t you? It means they peeled all the coupons off the bags and sent them to Canidae so that they could get reimbursed the $2 a bag without ever passing the savings onto the customer. Can you say shifty?

To add insult to injury, the bag I had been told was $38.99, they tried to charge $48.99 for. $48.99! I said ‘no way’, told him I’d have to go to Pet Supplies Plus where I can get it for $37.99 ($11 less per bag!) and started to leave. Manager went outside to talk to the clerk I’d spoken to (here’s a picture for you; she was smoking while squatting against a pole and hocking lugies on the ground. I walked outside to hear her say to another clerk “look, this one’s in the shape of a heart!” I kid you not!); the clerk said she’d told me $48.99. I wasn’t going to argue about it, but no way was I paying that either.

So hubby and I got back in the car, trekked over to Pet Supplies Plus, to get the food for the bargain price of $37.99. And guess what? They had actually LEFT THE COUPONS ON THEIR BAGS! So I decided to get two. A clerk was even nice enough to climb the shelves to get one off the tippy top for me. So, Pet Supplies Plus sold me two bags of Canidae for $35.99 tonight; that crooked pet store can keep their ridiculously overpriced bags. I sure hope the $2 per bag they’re cheating Canidae out of is worth it for them when they go out of business. Enjoy your customer-free store, people!