On how my intelligence works

I have decided that I am good at several things. I make fantastic cookies. I can dress myself in a manner that indicates that I am not, in fact, colorblind. I know a thing or two about music theory and can work my way around a guitar, bass, and a few saxophones. I learned to read at a young age and have been doing so ever since. I can do rudimentary math, I can vacuum, scrub anything, sweep, mow lawns, and do a tiny bit of woodwork. I am fairly good at video games (almost done with FFX) and I can write with at least enough competence to earn me fairly good grades in school (I graduated with a 3.42).

What I cannot do, however, is figure out a grocery store.

Sure I can figure out superstores like Target. After all, I'm on my second round of working at one. In fact, I probably know more about the area I work in than anyone else who steps inside that store on any given day.

Grocery stores, on the other hand, are full of trickery. And deceit.

I like to think of myself as at least a decently simple guy. How stores work out their sales is beyond my comprehension. Enter story.

Yesterday I decided to go to the store to buy some necessities like Corn Pops and cheese. Macey's is having a sale on cereal, so off I go. I took Chloe and left Becky to sleep since she worked all night. After all, I'm a man. I can spend money and come back with things we need. As I get to the grocery store I grab an ad for the sales and see that if you buy four boxes of cereal then they're only 1.88. Nice right? So I walk over and there are four varieties in the area: Corn Pops, Fruit Loops, Apple Jacks and Frosted Flakes. I like the pure sugar while Becky likes the substance, and Frosted Flakes is the most substantial so I got two boxes of those and filled in the other two requisites. Then I went off to get the other things for dinner.

As I get to the checkout, I hand the guy the coupon and he says that Frosted Flakes are not a part of the sale. Yes, in fine print on the coupon it says that the other three are the only varieties eligible. But...what? They were all in the area under the banner! Why would you include non sale cereal? To catch suckers like me that's why. So I spent more than I wanted, was irritated at this store, and set off.

I get to the car and load everything up when I realize: I forgot the tubes of croissants for chicken rolls. Sigh. Grabbing Chloe, I walk back in to the very back while my milk sits in the roasting car and bring a few tubes to the checkout. After buying them, making my way back to the car and putting Chloe back in, I realize that we have no cream cheese that we need. I would have to go all the way back in and to the back of the store to pick some up.

So that's the story of why we had Hawaiian Haystacks last night instead.