Way back in April I played Safeway’s buy-one-get-one-free deal by splitting with the lady behind me, saving me a buck in the process (look back at April 27, 2006). This time I played a different hand and still did well. It turned out that I had thinned out my wallet before going to Washington D.C. and hadn’t put all my cards back in, so my Safeway card wasn’t in my wallet, and I had no idea what phone number was associated with it. This could have been an expensive mistake. On the other hand, I had grabbed two cartons of eggs (they were buy-one-get-one-free for the 18 count cartons), and had intended to just give one of the cartons to the person either in front of or behind me. I asked the guy behind me if he had a Safeway card I could borrow and offered to give him the carton of eggs in return. He was, of course, willing. So I unloaded my free eggs on him, used his card to save a bunch of money, and left a happy man.
I really think that people get a lot more accomplished when they aren’t so hermit-ish and communicate with other people. This whole culture of being an individual with the iPods in the ears all the time, not talking to anybody or sharing anything is unhealthy in so many ways.