A NEW PHONE

So I upgraded to a new phone yesterday. My old one was failing and gee wiz it was five years old.  The new one is pretty much like the old one, except it does things the old one couldn’t do, that I will never use, or never understand; but hey I needed to do this and if you ask any of your tech savvy friends they will understand why.

I asked at the store if they had any good sales on the phone I wanted to buy and the sales person, bubbling over with glee said, “This is your lucky day. Its buy one get one free.’ I explained to him that I live by myself with a Labrador dog that has no thumbs so she can’t push the home button and really no one to call anyway because all of her doggy friends don’t have phones.  Yet.

Well anyway I kept my old phone case but unbeknown to me the hole in the back of the case for the camera to peak out of didn’t line up with the camera eye so my pictures were rather dark. I did figure it out eventually because I’m no dummy, so I’m proud of that. So I’m off to buy a new camera case. Maybe I should have got the free phone, so I could trade it for a new case. Oh well live and learn.

Sales and advertising get almost laughable some times and especially this buy one, get one free offers. There are certain items that you buy that rarely change or wear out, so having two of them just doesn’t make a lot of sense. I once bought an iron tool that was guaranteed for life and it was on a buy one get one free sale. When I asked the salesperson what I was supposed to do with the second one he said, “Give it away to a friend.” I asked, “How about you sell me one for half price and my friends can buy their own.” “No can do” he said.

Another ploy is offering things for 50% off. I went to my favorite grocery store that was offering T-bone steaks for half price. They were 7.95 a pound on sale ½ price. My Staples High School math puts that regular price at around 16 dollars per Lb. I didn’t buy and when I went back the following week they were 8.95 a pound not on sale. When I asked why they told me, “Different grade of meat.”

Another favorite trick is to shame you into buying things, just because everything has a shelf life you know. Talk to a mattress salesman and tell him your mattress is 9 years old and he will tell you, “You are playing with fire my friend. That mattress is so full of bugs and sloughed off skin cells, it just might be labeled hazardous waste. Your lucky it hasn’t walked right out the door a long time ago.” No it doesn’t

matter that you had it covered with a bed cover all those years, those critters will find a way to get in there. There just might be a separate disposable fee for something like that. He heard most of them are being sent to a super fund sight out in the Mohave Desert and it ain’t cheap but just for today buy one mattress and get another free and I’ll get rid of your old one somehow. By the way that free mattress will cost three hundred dollars for delivery.                         See you next week readers