The Consumer Economy

While out shopping this weekend, I was sorely tempted to take advantage of Bargain Bin's "Buy One, Get One Free" offer. But if I bought one, I realized, I wouldn't need another one because the first one comes with a lifetime guarantee. There was no point in owning a second one as far as I could see. Where would I put it, anyway? And besides, I didn't think that I could carry two home. So I asked a clerk if I could buy one and then get another one of something else of equal value, but he told me that the offer only applied to those ones. However, he suggested, I could always buy one and keep if for myself, and then give the other one away as a gift at Christmas. This seemed like a good idea to me. I hadn't thought of that. There was still the transport issue, of course, if I was going to leave with a pair of them, but the clerk said it wasn't a problem because the store provided home delivery. In that case, I said, what the hell, perhaps I should buy four and get four free, then I'd have the one for myself that I needed and would also have seven to give away. I'd get all my Christmas shopping done in one fell swoop. I'd have to buy a lot more wrapping paper than usual, obviously, but that was no big deal. Ah, said the clerk, unfortunately the offer is limited to one per customer. Look, I explained, I won't buy one, but I will buy four: you do the math. The sales total is the same whether I'm four different customers or just me. He said that he could do the math and that it made sense to him, but he still didn't have the authority to authorize selling more than one per customer. What if, I postulated, I called up my friend and had him come over and we split the cost of one between us so that we could take two and consequently get one each. The clerk replied that he guessed that such a plan would be okay. And we could split the cost for the one on two credit cards? It would probably be easier, the clerk replied, if he charged only one credit card and then whoever hadn't paid could give the other guy a check for half the amount. I said that I would have to think about it and thanked him for his time. He advised me to think quickly, as I turned around to leave, since he didn't think that stocks would last that long. Before they are sent back to the warehouse, I wondered, or before further reductions are made.