I Cracked the Code

I made a great find at our fancy neighborhood market. Among all the single cans of fancy beer in the refrigerated section, I found one for $1.99. The only one priced as such. It was a good deal, about the same unit price as in a 6-pack. So I bought a can.

A week later, the deal still existed, so I bought two cans.

On another subsequent occasion, I bought two more cans, and sat out on the parklet in front of the market, on a sunny afternoon. I had created my own Happy Hour for the low price of $4.36 (after tax, etc.) and I was perfectly content. It felt almost too good to be true. It felt like I had beaten the system or uncovered some loophole or cracked some code.

The next time I returned, the price had risen to $2.99 per can, the same as most of the other fancy beers sitting adjacent to it on the shelf.

My little scheme was over.

I imagine the precipitating conversation among employees transpired as follows:

“You know that cheap guy who comes in here every now and then?”

“Which guy?”

“You know. The loser who comes in, looks at a few items, winces at the prices when he thinks we’re not looking, and then leaves without buying anything.”

“Oh, THAT guy. Yeah, I hate that guy. What about him?”

“Well, it’s the strangest thing. The only thing he ever buys are cans of the $1.99 beer. And among all our customers, he’s the only one who buys them. No one else, just him.

“That’s odd. I’ll look into it.”

Ten minutes later…“So, it turns out the $1.99 beer was mispriced. It should have been $2.99 a can, just like most of the other beers. Our guy is probably having delusions and fantasies about being a clever, covert code cracker, while he’s really just a miserable, old cheapskate. All he did was bring attention to an obviously mispriced item. So thanks, dumbass.”