Sold Out Darkness

I know it’s 7:00 on a Friday night. And yes, we have plans so I’m not some uber computer dork who likes to sit at home and blog on the weekends. But I had to share an “urban legend” that I just confirmed to be true…

To give you a little background on how this all came into being; I love Amy's Roasted Vegetable & Cheese-less pizza. Every couple of months Harris Teeter will put these particular pizzas on sale (buy one, get one free) and because of this fantastic deal I can never actually bring myself to buy them at full price.

However, and herein lies the problem, someone else in Charlottesville also loves Amy's Roasted Vegetable & Cheese-less pizza. Every time I go to the grocery store, I go straight to the frozen food section to check if they are on sale (yes I admit this is a little obsessive). But without fail there is always an abundance of the darn things (which means they are full price) or there are none (which means they are on sale and my arch pizza nemesis has bought them out).

Anyway, I was explaining this very troubling situation to my mother in law over Christmas break and she looked at me confidently and said, "Oh, just ask for a rain check." A rain check? This was not a term I was familiar with - at least not in relation to anything that has to do with grocery shopping. Still, Eileen was very sure of herself and went on to tell me that if something is on sale and there are not any left, the manager will give you something called a "rain check" (which means you can come back and buy them at the sale price any time you feel like it.)

I must admit I had serious doubts about this whole thing. I thought the reason things went on sale were to get rid of them... The idea of selling products at a discounted price post stock-adjustments just made no sense. Still I tucked her little tid-bit away in the back of my mind.

Well wouldn’t you know, on my first Harris Teeter visit since we’ve been back in C-ville Amy's is buy one, get one free. And (of course) the pizza nemesis is back too and has made his/her rounds.

Eileen’s “rain check” immediately popped in my head.

Nervously I approached the girl at the checkout counter thinking for sure she would look me straight in the face and laugh... But she didn't. She acted like people ask for these things all day long and told me to stop by customer service on my way out. Holy smokes, it worked! Even better, the girl at the service counter asked how many I wanted. Again new to this whole thing I shyly said "three." She offered six saying this way I could have a total of 12 (for the price of six of course) and with no expiration date on their offer. WHAT! WOW! Eileen’s “rain check” immediately catapulted to the most brilliant piece of shopping advice I had ever received! Please tell me I'm not the only person who has lived in the “sold out” dark for 27 years…