The Aldi's Adventure....

I have to be the world's most ignorant shopper.

I have never gotten into the coupon thing, or all these little reward programs that every store seems to be pushing nowadays.  The only time I ever use a coupon is if Karla leaves it on top of my shopping list.

Lately, Karla has become obsessed with shopping at Walgreens and CVS.  Every time she comes back from either one of these stores it's like a female version of a successful barbarian raid.  She crashes through the front door, waving her receipt over her head and slams the spoils of her victorious hunt onto the table.....RRRAAARRGGHH!!!!  (I try to picture this scene with Karla wearing a viking helmet and clad in dead animal fur.  A sword in one hand and a bloody receipt in the other.....It amuses the shit out of me)

And with every successful hunt, comes a dramatic story.  Unfortunately for Karla, she is married to a man with an incredibly short attention span.  I hear "I spent" and "I saved"....Everything else?  Cue the Charlie Brown teacher voice -- "Wuh wa-wa, wuh wa, wa WAAAAA......"

One day I got it into my head that I need to prove that I can save money too....Not through coupons or anything that requires research....Heavens, no...It had to be simple.

So when I heard that you can get a gallon of milk at Aldi's for 1.99 I jumped on the opportunity.  Toby (the milkosaur) can wipe out three gallons of milk a week; and that is not an exaggeration.  I did the math in my head and figured that I could save at least twenty dollars a month by buying my milk at Aldi's.....Well, that settles it.

Little did I know that I would have to make two trips before leaving Aldi's with any groceries.

I did dodge one small bullet when Karla told me to take some change with me.

"What for?"

"For the grocery cart."

"What?  I have to pay to use their grocery cart?"

"No, it's just a rental...You'll get your quarter back."

Are there any other store chains that do this?  I had never heard of such a thing.  Is this to prevent grocery cart thievery?  Is the theft of grocery carts a common occurrence at Aldi's?

Oh, well......whatever.

So I get into Aldi's and do my thing.  It's a tiny little store (which makes me happy) and I find everything that I need in about fifteen minutes (which makes me really happy).

I get to the check out counter, pleased with my day and ready wave a money saving receipt of my own when I get home....RRAARRGH!!!!

Then the shit hit the fan.......

I ran my debit card through the scanner and hit the cancel button when it asked for my pin number.  I never bothered to learn my pin number because every where I've shopped when I have been asked credit or debit I just say credit.  It's all coming out of the same account, so what's the difference?

The difference, I soon discovered, is that Aldi's will not accept credit because they do not want to incur the surcharge that comes with it.  The store prefers debit because then the shopper is responsible for the surcharge.

Well, at that moment in time, that meant I was totally screwed.

"I'm sorry," I told the cashier and manager, "I don't know my pin number.  I have never had a reason to learn it."

I called Karla, but she didn't know my pin number either......Crap.

"Well, you could write us a check." said the Manager who, by the way, was really cool about the whole thing.

"I don't have my check book." I said....After all, the whole point in the debit card, for me, was so I didn't have to carry my checkbook around.  "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to put everything back."

"No, that's ok," said the Manager, "We'll take care of it."

I left Aldi's defeated and deflated.  This barbarian's first money saving hunt was an abysmal failure.... rar....

Although I didn't find the incident embarrassing in any way.  The way I saw it was that I have been playing the same shopping game for years and then some jerk went and changed all the rules......How in the hell was I supposed to know that Aldi's doesn't take credit?

Too bad, too....I had a 16 inch pizza in my cart that only cost six bucks.  I couldn't wait to get home and try it out.

That unfortunate incident happened on a Friday.  The weekend was tied up and I couldn't get back until the following Monday.

So when I returned on Monday, the first thing I did was walk up to the cashier and made sure that I clearly understood the rules as played by Aldi's.  Once we were clear that my debit card was acceptable (as long as I had my pin number, which I now know) I went shopping....again.

And all went well this time.  I did skip on the peanut butter because there was no Jif.  I made that awful mistake once before of purchasing non-Jif peanut butter and was nearly decapitated when I got home.  No, I will go elsewhere for Toby's preeminent peanut butter.

Everything went well at the check out counter.  Then the cashier asked me, "Would you like cash back?"

Now I will be the first to admit that I am not quick on the draw.  When he asked me that, I got confused, thinking that this was some sort of little money-saving program that they run.  But for the life of me I couldn't figure out how much cash I should ask for.  I mean, don't I need to see the receipt in order to know how much cash back I needed?

So I did what any dumb ass like me would do.....I guessed.

"Um, 5?"

The cashier whips out five bucks and hand it over with my receipt.  "OK, here you go."

"Uh.......Thank you?"

"Your welcome," the cashier smiled, "Come again."

"Um, ok."

I called Karla when I got out of the store.....I had to know what in the hell just happened to me.

Karla set me straight (and hopefully, whilst not suppressing a giggle), "Tom, all you did was withdraw an extra five dollars out of your own checking account."

"Oh.......Well, for Pete's sake."

Ignorance is bliss, aint' it?

Having learned another lesson, I pushed my cart of groceries out to the car where I realized another change in the rules of the game as played by Aldi's.......None of my groceries were in bags.  They just rolled and rattled around in the cart as I made my way out to the car.

Shit.

So I carefully place all of my groceries on the floorboard of the car and then dug out a couple of bags when I got home so that I wouldn't  have to make four thousand trips back and forth from the car to the house.

Aldi's....you are one strange bird.

But, now that I know what's going on, I think I will go back.  Especially if this gigantic six dollar pizza that I have sitting in my fridge tastes any good.

Oh, and to save money on milk.....RAAARGGH!!!!