SC's Guide to Supermarket Shopping

[ShadedWings]

For electric services:

243: No matter how many times you are told you can't have more time to pay your bill, keep stating "but I just need two days". They'll eventually get it.

244: When your lights are out, call and scream and yell from the start about how you paid your bill (even if you didn't pay the full bill). It can't possibly be an outage.

245: Make note - it's illegal for your electric to be turned off due to non-payment if you have children.

a: If told otherwise, threaten to sue.

b: If that doesn't work, threaten to go to the newspaper/tv station. I'm sure they will find it breaking news that you don't pay your bills.

246: The phone reps lie to you, there IS a button they can push to turn on your electric right NOW. Don't believe otherwise.

247: Assure the phone rep that you will give the field worker the check they need to reconnect your service AFTER they reconnect it, even if they insist that the payment is needed before. They're just lying.

248: If you live next to a power station/tower, a field worker can get to your house even faster! After all, they live at these locations since they work for the electric company!

249: Keep demanding that all you have is xx.xx amount of money, then change your story later only AFTER the phone rep insists they need a higher amount. Try to keep all those precious dollars! It's not like you're paying for services already rendered or anything.

250: Electric companies are responsible for the following, because it's their fault you got turned off for non-payment...

a: All the spoiled food in your fridge.
b: Your children being due home soon, and can't be sitting in the dark.
c: Your fish could die!
d: Your family member needing electricity for medical reasons, and you refuse to take them somewhere WITH electricity, or to a hospital. (This is after offering any medical reconnection options... some people just refuse for some idiotic reason.)

251: It's not your fault you haven't made payments on your account. You didn't get your bill, despite the fact that they were mailed to the correct address, and you could have called at any point in the past year. Who needs to pay bills every month without the actual statement in hand?

For restaurants:

252: If the dining establishment offers a buffet, feel free to lick the serving spoon clean. It reduces the mess!

253: Regardless of how many people are being taken care of by your waitress, try to flag her down several times in the space of five minutes. Bonus points if you do it while she's carrying a heavy tray full of hot food. Then an extra bonus point if it's a mundane question like "how late are you open".

254: Encourage your children to color on the tables. It brightens up the place!

For supermarkets:

255: Feel free to squeeze in with the cashier into that tiny little space they stand in to let someone by in your line with the cart. They don't mind sharing their personal space with a complete stranger. Bonus if you weigh over 250 pounds. An extra point if you haven't bathed in a week.

(*shudder* I'm not bias... I'm a bit overweight myself.. but if you get that close to me without permission don't expect me to like it.)

256: Decide to not take something after you already paid for it, and demand the cashier refund it. After all, they were JUST handling it. They must be incompetent if they can't.

257: When a cashier tells you that they are out of a particular item, feel free to pester them with the perfectly good question of "what do you mean you're out?". After all, they probably don't know the definition of the words, and/or the MUST have some more in the back. (Forgot the number of that rule!)

258: When you are shopping at a 24-hour grocery store, be sure to complain loudly at 3 am that people need to do stocking "at a better time". Seriously, people shop now, what are they thinking?

259: If people are indeed stocking, start rummaging through the pallet of boxes to find something that's not on the shelf. They're just lazy and haven't gotten to it yet. Bonus points if the stack is higher than your head. It's their fault if it falls on you.

260: Ask to use a stocker's box cutter for your personal needs. Example: cutting off the stems of the bananas to reduce the weight and cost. It saves pennies, and the employee won't mind the fruit residue on their very sharp blade, it makes it nice and slippery, much easier to slice through those pesky boxes.

(Yes that actually happened... long, old story. After the third time the same guy asked me to allow it, I refused, which I should have done in the first place, but a dumb manager told me to go ahead. )

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I'm sure there are tons more, but it's late and I've been trying to go across all my jobs.. and for the supermarket ones, all the good and common ones are taken!

[staticradio]

hey, no problem...

261. Always let your children run throughout the store and scream at the top of their lungs. It adds to the enjoyment of the associates who toil an 8-12 work day.

262. By all means, use the self-checkout for orders over $300, tie up said lane for 1/2 hour, and avoid the 2 open registers you passed.

263. Always hand us your wet garbage, even if there is a waste can behind you. We love cleaning up after you!

264. Always think that whatever the kiosk states that it's the clerk's fault (especially the dreaded, "Swipe card again").

265. Please, by all means, leave your garbage at the end of the register (please refer to rule #263).

266. Whatever you do, please use our neighboring businesses' carts in our store. We're all owned by the same big giant global corporation anyway.

267. Hey, what the heck, take $30 worth of take-out food from our convenient food stations/bars, and decide not to buy it at the last moment. We love losing money!

268. Go to the frozen section first. We love cleaning up turkey blood from our belts!

269. No matter what the sign actually states, always incorporate FREE or FREE ITEM when explaining it to the cashier (please refer to last line in rule #267).

270. Always remember rule #8, or a team of wild antelope will trample you to the brink of death!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

SC's guide to buying furniture at Irv's discount store

271. Our furniture department is set up with You, the Customer, in mind. So feel free to tinker with, fondle, and just generally lay your grubby mitts all over the displays. Unfold the futons and leave them. Take the leaves out of the kitchen tables and toss them someplace. Take down all the barstools are pose them next to the pub table so you know what the two together will look like.

272. If you change your mind, just toss your pull tag on the floor for the cleaning crew to sweep up and discard. Or better yet, deposit it with a totally different item. People like surprises, like when they think they're buying a storage cabinet and the cashier calls for a card table set.

273. If you have garbage to throw away like food wrappers or poopy diapers, hide them in one of the displays in a drawer or behind the door. The employees love nothing more than a rousing game of "Name That Odor" or "Where is That Godawful Smell Coming From?"

274. Attention all teenagers! Need a place to eat your fast food meal or DQ ice cream because the restaurant's dining room is so lame? Hang out in our furniture department! Make yourselves at home! Take your shoes off. Or better yet, kick your feet up and leave muddy shoeprints on the futon mattresses. When you're finished, make sure to hide your garbage as described above.

275. When buying multiples of an item, take one pull tag to the register and tell the cashier "I need 2,3,4, or however many of these" The tags do have "Take one tag for each item you purchase" printed on them, but this of course does not apply to you.

276. When purchasing furniture, pick it up in the smallest vehicle you have. A Geo Metro is a good size. A Smart Car is even better. The employee carrying out your furniture will appreciate unboxing and unpacking all the parts to fit in your small vehicle. It is a welcome break from his/her regular duties.

277. Make sure to remind the employee loading your furniture not to scratch up your upholstery or break your kick-ass speakers. This is the furniture-buying equivalent of Rule #8, which you had better not ever forget.

278. Stand off to the side and light up a smoky treat which the employee is trying to shove the big box into your small car (You did bring the smallest car you have, didn't you?). Then get behind the employee and help them shove the box in such a way that the lit end of your cancer stick is buried in the employee's neck. It may hurt them a little, but this lets the employee know you're helping.

279. Ask the employee loading your furniture "Can you come home with me to put it together! Kahilk kahilk kahilk!" Even though the employee has heard this approximately 59,364,948,276,648,911,050,342 times, it never gets old.

280. If you get home and find missing or broken parts or hardware, DO NOT call the toll-free number in the instructions, even though that's what the instructions tell you to do. Instead, drive back to the store and demand they open up a new box and fish out the part/hardware just for you. If you call, you'll be put on musical hold for approximately 13 hours listening to the music of Elton John, who has written a great many songs. Perhaps too many. Before long, you'll be singing along "Nothing like children living like lovers, rolling like thunder under the covers", which is a fate worse than death. Then when you finally get to talk to a human being, they'll laugh at you in the cruel manner Joseph Stalin did when he enslaved all of Eastern Europe, and hang up the phone.