recently, my partner received a gift card to target for his birthday. of all places to receive a gift card to, target is a pretty good choice. most everyone can find some things they need and probably a few things they want – all with varying price tags.
in my previous blog about gift cards (’tis the season, dec. 1, 2007), i expressed a pretty hefty amount of frustration toward those tiny pieces of plastic governing many of our holiday and birthday spending decisions. but basically, my point was this: either consumers end up spending more than the gift card amount, thus somewhat defeating the purpose of a “gift,” or we don’t spend enough, so we end up returning to the store, where inevitably, we’ll end up spending more than the remaining balance of the gift card. it’s a capitalistic double-edged sword – my favorite kind.
so why am i re-blogging about this? well, the gift card gods were in a good mood on this particular trip to target.
it all began with a trip to the snack counter where my partner bought us each a cherry snow flavored icee. the icees totaled $2.80 with tax. icees in hand, we were prepared for our shopping excursion. after much deliberation, my partner decided to spend the remaining balance on seasons 1 and two of it’s always sunny in philadelphia (btw, you should watch it if you don’t/haven’t already), a few pairs of boxer-briefs, a jar of nutella, a package of raspberry chocolate milano cookies and two pairs of socks.
once the decisions had been made, we made our way to the shortest checkout line where we were astonished when the items totaled a little over $60. no way had our calculations been that far off. but wait – the cashier had accidentally scanned the dvd twice! so he removed the extra dvd, and the total rang up to $47.20. yes, that was the EXACT amount of the gift card’s balance – post icees.
i was shocked. my partner grabbed the icee receipt for verification, and sure enough, we had stuck it to the gift card man. so what’s the moral of the story? am i pro gift-card now? no. but if i get one, i’ll do my best to spend exactly what’s on it. not a penny more. not a penny less.
