17 Cents Away From 25 Dollars (And we're feeling pretty Lowe's about it...)

Let me start out by mentioning that the reason I've dropped off the face of the blog long ago, is because we've been working like mad to finish our basement this year.  On top of family, normal work, church and other things, I've had a moonlighting job, and it has all eaten up 20 hours/day or more.

This weekend was particularly interesting.  We're about 98% complete with finishing the basement (finishing, not furnishing -- that's next year... heh) and we needed to pick up some hardware this weekend for some of the little things that are left for us to do.

This required a trip to Lowe's.

We packed up the crew and headed over, hoping to get out of there in $300 or less.  We met our goal, and started the voyage home.  Before pulling in the driveway, Gwen asked me to stop at the mailbox so we could get today's mail on our way in.

As Murphy's Law would have it, in the stack of mail is an insert from Lowe's.  Can you guess what it had in it?

Trying to remember what we were set back as we walked out of the store, the number $294.xx came to mind.  Gwen and I smirked at each other, said "Ain't that always the way?!" and had a good laugh.

Then the thought struck, "Maybe they'll still honor it even though the sale is completed."  So we rushed in the house and I grabbed the phone... pulled the receipt out of my pocket, found Lowe's number and started to dial.

While doing so, my eyes scanned down the receipt so I'd be ready to tell the employee how much we'd spent so I could justify using this discount card.  As I was about to press the last digit to dial, and to add insult to injury... this is what I saw:

Needless to say, I hung up the phone, with a big fat, "Are you KIDDING ME?!!?!?"
I guess I'm getting dyslexic, because I could have sworn it was $294...

What makes this story even more humorous is, at the end of our adventure, when it was time to pay the piper (er... the cashier); of course the kids are bugging to buy everything on the end caps.  Ok, actually they just wanted Gatorade.

We told Brennan, Mandi and Kimmie they could get one, but Kimmie opted out in favor of having a tall glass of Chocolate Milk when we arrived home.  Curse that chocolate love... that extra buck would have saved us $24!!!  It would been the most valuable Gatorade we ever purchased.

Moral of the story... check your mailbox before you head to the hardware store.
And now you know...