What a Rip-Off

Dana was fuming when she left the store, she had just spent the last twenty minutes arguing with the manager over the price of a cell phone. They had advertised in their weekly flyer that the phone was free with the purchase of any other item of greater or equal value. She had purchased a new laptop at the same time, so she knew for a fact that she qualified well above the price of the phone. Normally she wouldn't have bothered, but her other phone had died that morning on the way to the doctor's office.

They had told her that she had to purchase a plan in order to qualify for the phone, but it was never stated in the flyer, so she argued that they were falsely advertising things. They didn't even hsave a sign anywhere in the store stating this fact, eiether, so she refused to ease up on it. After arguing her point for nearly twenty minutes, she finally gave up without purchasing anything, including the laptop that she had wanted so badly in the first place.

She walked into the house a few minutes later, throwing her jacket across the room and shaking the snow out of her hair. Her husband looked at her and knew something was definitely pissing her off. "What's wrong, Dana? I thought you were going to get your laptop after your appointment."

"I was, but I decided I'm not buying anything in that store. Remember the advertisement for the free cell phone with qualifying purchases?" Dana had finally gotten her boots off and gotten a cup of coffee and sat down at the table with Tony, still annoyed and fuming.

"Yes, I was going to go check it out tomorrow and see what kind of phone it was. Why?" Tony looked kind of perplexed.

"Well on the way to the doctor's this morning, my phone rang so I went to answer and it wouldn't pick up the call. I couldn't get any of the buttons to work at all. So after my appointment, I went to the provider and asked them to check it out. They said there was no point fixing it, it would cost us more than the phone did. I asked about the phone that was advertised and they said that if I were to purchase it, I could bring it in and they would switch my number and stuff to it for free."

"Okay, that makes sense. And with the laptop, you sure had enough of a purchase to qualify. So what happened?" Tony got up and started preparing some lunch for them, he had planned on making them a romantic lunch, since he was going to have to work late shift that night and wouldn't be able to be there for dinner.

"I went to the store, picked out the laptop, then went over to the phone area, picked out the color that I wanted, since they had a couple different ones to pick from. I went up to the register to check out and they told me that I had to pay full price for the phone, because I wasn't buying a plan with it. I spent twenty minutes arguing with the manager, after spending half an hour arguing with the clerk that it was never advertised that way." Dana watched him move around the kitchen and smiled a little, the anger starting to drain from her as she watched him cook her favorite foods for her.

"No, they said free with purchase over the price of the phone. I take it that they wouldn't honor their advertisement?"

Dana shook her head, but he had his back to her, so he couldn't see it. "No, they refused, so I walked out, left the phone and laptop on the counter. I figured that I could go elsewhere after lunch. The kids are going to a friend's house for the weekend."

Dana got up and started helping with the lunch preparation, got out dishes and drinks for them while Tony finished cooking. "God, Dana, I can't believe that they did that. That is such a rip-off. We won't shop there again if we don't have to. Go buy yourself a phone and your laptop after lunch. Don't worry about the cost, I got a bigger bonus than we had budgeted for."

Dana smiled and kissed him on the cheek. "You're so wonderful to me. Thank you, baby."

Tony smiled and pulled her into his arms for a hug. "I do it because I love you."