To give you a bit of a background on why we were there today, our next-door neighbor allowed us to pick some cherries from his tree this week. Last night after work, we went there to get a mess to eat, make pies, etc. Well, when we left with our booty, I began to think about what to do with them. I have tried to make cherry jam and it didn't turn out well because the fruit floated. I didn't want to try it again for now, so I thought about jelly. I came across a recipe for cherry-plum jelly. I told mom about it and since cherries are kind of perishable once removed from their loving home, she suggested that we go get the plums today. So off the the store we went.
First stop was Food Lion. I will go ahead and admit that I don't care for this place. But they had Propel for $3/pack. Savings beat preferences in this case. There were no plums there (I knew they wouldn't have them!) so we cruised on down the hill to the Harris Teeter (My insides were absolutely bursting with excitement.) Once inside and after tasting the bread samples of the day, we made our way to the produce. Lo and behold, Harris Teeter was out of plums too! The disappointment ravished my body. Then Mom happened to notice the apricots and voila, there was a plumcot (A cross between a plum and apricot)! Well, not one to be picky, we quickly grabbed the little jewels and stuffed them into a plastic bag. Mom found the scales and discovered that we didn't get but a pound of the 3.5 pounds we needed. So we stuffed more and more and more and more and finally reached the 3.5-pound mark on the scale.
We sauntered to the self-checkout line and began the process of paying for the fruit. We only had this one item. But there were no stickers on the fruit to give the code. And on the roll around produce code bar, no such thing as a plumcot was listed. So we asked for help. The lady didn't know so she called for some help and sent a guy to look. He never returned. Then she asked another lady and she brought back a code. When we entered it into the machine, it was for black plums, not plumcots. The first lady wanted to send someone else, but I volunteered to go and take a look. When I arrived at the stand again, there was no code on the container and I noticed that the price was 40 cents higher than what had rung up for the black plums. Upon returning to the checkout, I looked at the screen again and suddenly realized that we had 7 pounds of plumcots!!! The scales in the produce department were a bit off!!
All this time, people were standing in line waiting for an empty checkout. I am sure they were wondering what we were doing using a checkout with nothing there! When I told mom that we really had 7 pounds of fruit, she told me to bring the fruit. We went back to the first lady, and she did a wonderful thing...
She took a plastic bag, enclosed our fruit with it, and told us "Merry Christmas!" Mom, looking incredulous, said "What?" The lady apologized for all the trouble and said again, "Merry Christmas. Have a nice day. And enjoy the fruit!" Mom: "Are you sure I don't owe you anything? I feel funny walking out of here without paying." Lady: "No, ma'am. It's Harris Teeter's policy to give it to the person when no one can find an answer." Promising her a jar of the jelly, we headed out the door. Mom said she felt like she was stealing! I, on the other hand, felt joyous! We received double what we wanted and didn't have to pay a dime for it! WOW!
Cue the music...
I love my HARRIS TEETER!!!
(I at least owe them a small ad in exchange for the fruit!)
1 comment:
Y'all were two blessed individuals in the fruit department. :)
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