Carpe Datum

A Small Victory

I have discovered that enthusiastic lecture mode is useful not just in classroom and parenting situations. Yesterday, I was at the store buying fried chicken (always much cheaper at the grocery store than at a fast-food place). I explained to the Chicken Lady that I wanted a 16 piece box, but only dark meat.

She looked confused, "You want just dark meat?"

I said, "Right, just thighs and legs."

She shook her head, "Oh no, we don't sell that way."

I said, "Excuse me? The menu says 16 pieces of chicken right there for 11 bucks. It doesn't say what kind."

She said, "No, you have to buy whole chicken. Eight pieces. Two breast, two thigh, two leg, two wing, and you do that twice, and that sixteen pieces."

I said, "Has something about the menu or prices changed in the last week?"

She said, "No."

I shook my head with Genuine Bemused Scientific Curiosity, "Well, that's funny then. Because the last five weeks I've come in here, I've explained to them what I wanted, as I just explained to you, and I've gotten exactly what I wanted for that price."

She shook her head with Obstinate and Petty Bureaucrat Grimace, "Well, you weren't talking to me."

"Obviously," I shot back, irritated.

She looked at me.

I let out a big Beaten-Down-By-The-Man sigh and said, "Well, let me look at the menu again for a minute and see what it is that I can order then."

I peered carefully and studied closely while it slowly dawned on her that I had turned the tables. The only weapon I had against the Obstinate and Petty Bureaucrat Grimace was Well-Meaning, Studious, and Oblivious-to-All-Concept-of-Inconvenience Patience. I had nothing else in my hands, nowhere to go, nothing to do but continue to waste as much of her time as possible until I got what I wanted.

I said, with Fake Lecture Enthusiasm, "Okay, so let's see here, you have eight pieces. And that's two breasts, two thighs, two legs and two wings, right?" I'm in the gear I have to shift to when I am explaining a concept to a student for the tenth time in a given day.

She hoped I was about to give up and let her just sell me the standard box of chicken, "Yes, right."

Wrong. "Now you are selling individual breasts for $1.59, and individual thighs for $1.19, so if you let me substitute two thighs for two breasts, then you guys can charge me the exact same price and save yourselves 80 cents!", I exclaimed. "Isn't that like a great deal for you? And the wings and legs are only 10 cents different, so if you substitute 2 legs for the two wings, you still come out ahead by 60 cents!" I was on a Fake Enthusiasm roll here, trying to explain to her how wonderful and aesthetically interesting this new economics of chicken is, hoping she could share in my excitement.

She looked down at the tongs in her hand and with the unmistakeable Slumped Shoulders of the Defeated Bureaucrat, proceeded to fill the box with exactly what I wanted in the first place.

Another victory for science.

Posted by Observer at August 1, 2003 08:44 AM