CENTS OF INSANITY

I went to the grocery store this morning. In our household, the division of labor statutes do not dictate that I am responsible for the weekly grocery shopping -- my wife usually does it on Saturday morning -- but I am required to fill the gaps, so to speak, if there is anything we run out of during the week.

Well, just a few hours ago, as the heavily tatooed and pierced checkout girl was dragging my few items across the scanner, I almost went into hypothermic shock when I realized I had forgotten my Giant Eagle rewards card. You probably don't have Giant Eagle where you live, but whatever your local store is called -- Ralph's or Kroeger or Piggily Wiggily -- there is no doubt some version of this card attached to your keychain right now. Mine is attached to my keychain as well, but I had taken a different car to the store than usual and so I was unsettlingly without it.

Panic set in quickly. What was I going to do? How many of my items were on special "rewards card" sale? How much extra was this going to cost me? A small fortune no doubt -- somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty-eight cents -- and it was killing me. That was sixty-eight cents I could have spent at the bar or at Nordstrom or Best Buy. I asked the girl if she could just punch in my phone number, but she said "No, it doesn't work that way." Then she told me that I could bring my receipt back to the store, along with my rewards card, and present it to the customer service desk where they would process it and hand me back my sixty-eight cents.

Right. Like that was ever going to happen. There was about as much chance of me bringing that receipt back to the store as there was of my not adding "Heineken" to the end of the wife's weekly grocery list. (I always try to use the same color pen and match the handwriting as close as possible, in case you're thinking of trying it. It works.)

Anyway, as my anger over the lost sixty-eight cents seethed like a loose change inferno within me, I started to think about the purpose of those rewards cards and what the stores actually used them for. I was probably the last idiot on Earth to understand this, but I suddenly realized it was a way for them to keep track of exactly what you're buying and when, how much you spend, what brands you like, etc.

Then I dredged up an even more disturbing thought, and I was stabbed by a sharp pang of shame as I was forced to accept the notion that somewhere in the great Giant Eagle Database System there sat a long digital entry next to my name that must read: Heineken, Heineken, Heineken, milk, Heineken, Red Bull, Heineken, Heineken, cream cheese, Heineken, Heineken, Heineken, bread, Heineken, Rock Star, Heineken, Red Bull, Heineken, Heineken, Heineken, dishwasher detergent, Heineken, Sobe Adrenalin Rush, Heineken, Heineken, Pabst Blue Ribbon 30 Pack, Heineken, Heineken, eggs, Heineken, Rock Star, Heineken, Heineken, Heineken, Heineken, Clean & Clear Astringent, Heineken, Heineken, Bugler Tobacco, Heineken, Heineken, Heineken, coffee, Heineken...

And I started to think about how if someone ever took even a passing glance at that list, there was a decent chance they would get the idea that I was leading a less than wholesome and healthy lifestyle. Not only that, but now the judgmental bastards had my sixty-eight cents!