Glass bowls and knife set supermarket promotions are having a big impact on the weekly shopping bill, says Kevin Page. Photo / Getty Images
I've noticed over the past month or so our grocery bill has gone up a bit. Not enough to affect the stock markets of the world you understand, but enough for me to cast a closer eye over the receipt emerging from the till at checkout.
I should explain, in
our house, Mrs P contributes via regular paid employment while I do all sorts of things to bring in a crust in our new Covid-19 dominated world.
I do have more downtime than she has though, so it seems only fair I get the groceries in. Plus, at the moment pushing a trolley around the supermarket is my only form of regular exercise.
Anyway.
As I say, I've discovered we've consistently been spending a bit more lately.
Now, normally I wouldn't worry too much about such things.
We are pretty good at budgeting in our house.
Mrs P has pulled the purse strings tighter than the skin on some Hollywood faces so the money is always available. We tend to be in a pretty constant band, say $20 up or down most weeks.
But the thing I can't work out is why my very own Minister of Finance throws the rule book out the window when it comes to supermarket special promotions.
In our case, the latest "must-have" has been a simple glass bowl. And, proving the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, it seems the Boomerang Child has been similarly hypnotised by the promise of a nice looking kitchen knife.
To the uninitiated, these special deals work very simply. Basically, you spend a certain amount of dough each week and get some sort of sticker or reward points. Eventually, you will have enough of these to hand them over for a bowl or a knife.
That you can end up spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, to obtain the "prize" seems to have been lost on the purchaser, rational thought thrown away as quickly as the packaging the prize came in.
From what I have read it turns out a knife promotion has seen frenzied interest from shoppers across the country and tens of thousands of households are now in possession of bright, shiny, sharp objects which can do harm if used improperly – which is a little discerning given the fact that the mental faculties of those who now own the knives were obviously all over the place when they secured them.
But I digress.
For the purposes of this story, I am talking about my growing grocery bill and the "simply-must-have" bowl Mrs P has her sights set on.
So there I am the other day heading out the door, lengthy grocery list flapping in the breeze behind me, when she calls out: "Don't forget my bowl!"
It seems we have spent a million dollars and the points are in the bank, so to speak. We now qualify for the prize.
Naturally, me being a bloke and all that, I do exactly what I was supposed not to do and forget the bowl completely. Right up until I'm at checkout.
There ensues a mad panic as a wave of realisation comes over me and I have to leave the groceries unattended while the checkout operator stares at the full conveyor belt in front of her.
Anyway. I scarper to the end of the supermarket where I saw the bowls the week before. None there.
So I race back to the information counter. None there.
I can see the checkout operator whizzing through my stuff as I'm running around desperate to get the sacred bowl.
Finally, a helpful person comes from "out the back" with what she tells me is the absolute last bowl in the place. There are no more anywhere.
I offer thanks and get back to my groceries, just as the people waiting for me to clear my trolley out the way start to get annoyed.
Right, so I've got my groceries and my bowl and before you know it I'm home and unpacking it all.
Mrs P suggests the bowl needs a wash first to get rid of any dust etc. So I stick it in the dishwasher. Or try to.
I put the lid on to try it out first – again, I'm a bloke. We do that. Just to see. And now I can't get it off. There's some clever, sucky air button thing on it and it won't budge. So I employ some brute strength.
And the damn thing snaps.
At this point, there's not really much I can do except fess up.
I tell Mrs P this was the last bowl in the shop and the promotion has ended. There are no more.
She didn't, but at one point I thought she was going to wallop me with the now lidless and useless glass receptacle.
By then I was just pleased she got drawn into the supermarket's bowl promotion rather than the one for those knives.
• Kevin Page is a teller of tall tales with a firm belief too much serious news gives you frown lines. Feel free to share stories to editor@whanganuichronicle.co.nz (Kevin Page in subject field).
