Papyrus Brought Me Here...

In Georgetown we have an outlet mall (small and starting to flounder) that I have a few stores I have enjoyed shopping in. I'm beginning to see some of these stores close. There was a KB Toy Outlet. That is now gone. There was a movie theater. That is now gone. There was a Carolina Pottery store that closed but the Peddler's Mall moved in and that made the Peddler's Mall closer to where I live by a couple of miles. So that was good. A week or so ago I went into the Paper Store, another of my treaured little places to shop. I noticed signs taped on the doors and windows and around the cash register stating the store would close the middle of November. Sigh...I really appreciate this little store. They sold note cards 20 for $4. They were not in boxes, they were in a display shelf and you could get 3 of the thank you kind and 3 that were for birthdays and 5 that had flowers on the front and 1 with cats for Barbara's birthday, etc. You just picked out the 20 that fit your needs, took them to the register and the nice person checking you out would count the cards again then give you 20 envelopes for the cards. It was a great way to get cards without purchasing an expensive box of cards. I would get my 20 cards and as they dwindled down I would head back to the Paper Store to replenish my supply. Now, sometimes I do make my own cards with my Create a Card software. That is fun to do but having a supply of little note cards in the gossip bench upstairs was just the best. Claude has even learned they are there with address labels and you just pick out what works best and get an address label and you are ready to correspond on whatever. The other thing they sold that I regularly bought was really nice heavy wrapping paper in 72 square foot rolls for only $6. There was a really nice selection of all types of wrapping paper. I always bought wrapping paper at the Paper Store. I determined I needed to stock up on supplies before the doors to this wonderful little shop close. So today, after visiting mom and practicing music with Papa, I headed to my Paper Store one last time. I headed for the notes cards first. Then I noticed the percentage off sign over the cards. But the 20 notescards for $4 sign is now gone. In it's place is a $.23/card label under each row of cards. I reach in my purse for my little notebook. Quickly I tried to see what that meant for savings. I multiplied my $.23 times 20 cards (this made them more than they had been before the sale). Then I added my my 10% + 10% + 5% off to get 25% off (That may sound silly to some of you but I can do that in my head still faster than on paper.) Then I subtracted my amount off from the new amount for which the cards now sell. I was still going to have a savings and I knew I wouldn't have time to come back to the store before it closed so this was the best savings for which I could hope. Next I counted out 5 stacks of note cards in varying styles for everything from birthdays, to thank yous, to weddings, to funerals, etc. I had 10 of some kinds and 5 of a couple and 20 of one kind. I had them neatly arranged in stacks of 20 cards each. I also picked up several rolls of wrapping paper and headed to the checkout counter. The young man behind the counter asked me if I was ready to checkout. I assured him I was. Then he tells me he doesn't any more envelopes for these 100 cards I wanted to purchase. So my almost 60 year old brain starts to process again. I knew I had a box of the little envelopes you can buy at Office Depot for when I make the cards with my Create A Card software. I was sure these notecards would fit in those envelopes so I told him I still wanted to purchase them. He asked me how many cards I had as he was picking up the first of my stacks. I had taken the sets of 20 cards and turned each set a different way so it would be easy if they wanted to count them again to just count groups of 20 cards. He takes the 1st stack of 20 off the top and scans with the scanner and rings up 20 cards. Then he takes the next group of 20 and scans for 20 cards. Then he realizes that the stack of 20 cards might have 2 kinds of cards in it. So he looks at me and says, "How many cards did you have here?" I said, "I really don't know. I'm sure there were 4 or 5 sets of 20 cards each." Then it dawns on me he needs to ring each set up because they probably have different codes for the different kinds. So I show him how they are all in 2 sets of 10 for the most part and that would equal the little stacks of 20 cards. Except for the one that has 20 in it and another stack that had 10 and then 5 and 5 to equal the 20. The poor kid looks at me at says, "How many did you have total?" Now I'm not sure what total he wants, the grand total or the total in each stack. So I try to clarify by asking if he is talking about the grand total of all the notecards or the total of each of the stacks. He leads me to believe he is talking about the different types of cards in each of the stacks. So I calmly reach over to the notecards and separate the stacks by the kinds they are. Then I show him visually that there are 10 of these, 20 of these and 2 little stacks with only 5 in each of them. Clearly now he is more confused than ever. He says, "Did you have 2 stacks with 20 of the same kind?" I pick up on the fact that he probably wants to not have to reverse any more out of his register than he needs to so that the codes and amounts in the register are correct. So I carefully show him that there is only 1 stack where all 20 note cards are the same. The rest are all 10 each except for 2 little stacks of 10. By now I can also confidently tell him there are a grand total of 100 cards. Now he blows my almost 60 year old mind by taking the cards 20 at a time and scanning them not worrying about any code on them whatsoever!!! At this point, I don't really care how he scans them as long as I only pay for 100 notecards at the discounted price. But I'm beginning to feel like I'm in some type of notecard shell game and I'm on the losing end of the game. I'm wondering if this is meant to wear me down so I don't care if I get a discount. The kid just regroups the cards into 5 stacks of 20 cards each and rings each stack up as 20 cards not worrying about a code. I mean REALLY!!! the store is going out of business. They aren't going to order any more cards so why are codes that important anyway. I'm sure they just want to sell all they can for as little reduction as they can. Fortunately the 2 ladies behind me with the cute little round girl were very happy people. They were purchasing the little girl a stuffed bunny and she was in imagination heaven playing with that bunny while they waited patiently behind me in line. I'm feeling good I got what I already felt was a good deal for even more of a discount. It was an interesting experience. The good thing is that this young guy and I didn't lose our tempers we just kept on trying to get it so we both understood each other. I'll miss this little store. Wonder what will take its place???