8-dollar jeans

I'm not really good with money so I never realized before today what a good bargain $8 jeans are. Here's the story:

Alright, I'm going to my grandparents and suddenly my mother notices/cares that all my jeans have holes over the right knee. (I have no idea why it is always the right knee. It just always is.) So she tells Dad to go buy me some jeans. Dad, naturally, brings me along.

A quick side note: Mom never brings me along. She always thinks to herself "What size would Duncan be?" and then gets one size bigger. Sometimes they fit perfectly, sometimes they don't. If they don't, she just shrugs and tells me I'll grow into them. Anyways, it has worked for sixteen years and I kind of liked that system.

Back to the present. Dad is drawn to an 8-dollar jeans sale sign like a fly to a lantern. He is so happy. He is in a state of euphoria. He picks up about five pairs of jeans and tells me to go figure out which one fits the best. I try them all on which takes a long long time because new jeans always have buttons that don't yet fit the clasp. Anyways, I finally figure out that I'm a 31x32 whatever that means. We waltz over to the cash register and ding! Up pops "14.92" on the screen.

"Um, um, um, excuse me," says my dad, "This isn't the right cost. They were on sale for eight dollars." The cashier smiles politely and then calls someone on her Wal-mart phone.

"They said that was the right price," said the cashier.

"Come with me," says me dad. The cashier is obviously not being paid enough for this. "Wait here, Duncan." Off they go. A short while later the cashier comes back noticably lacking my dad. I go through all the possible options quickly ruling out natural disaster, sudden plague, earth swallowing up my dad, etc., leaving "murdered by cashier" as a reasonable choice, given the circumstances.

"He wants you to go back there," said the cashier. Processing... "Um, hello? He wants you to go back there."

"Ah," I say blankly and walk robotically back to the young mens' clothing aisle. When I spot Dad and notice how extremely deep in thought he is (and noticably alive) and that his attention is fixed on the price tag I realize in a flash what happened.

"Oh no!" I cry. Dad, realizing I'm there, begins explaining to me that the jeans I've been trying on for the past half hour are NOT included in the sale. You see, if you had simply removed a metal rail saying and I quote "JEANS JEANS JEANS," you would have seen the price tag very clearly stating "14.95." So after a brief argument I go back to the dressing rooms to try on two more pairs of pants, one 30x32 and one 32x32. You see, odd numbers are never included in sales. It's one of Walmart's rules.

In the end we decided to go with the one that was too big, saying with a shrug that I'll grow into them. (If we had let Mom do the shopping we'd have reached the same conclusion in less time.) All for the sake of six dollars.