Cold Cokes cost more than warm ones

On our way to church to take our son to a youth activity we stopped at a corner grocery store to pick up a Coke. We were in a hurry since the bus was to leave in 5 minutes (it really left 40 minutes late, but not because they were waiting on us). I ran into the store and saw a display of 2 liter Cokes. I grabbed one and took it up to the check out counter. And waited. And waited. And finally the clerk finished talking on his cell phone and came in to let me pay.

Frozen CokeWhen he punched up the price on his calculator he put in $6.70 (Argentine Pesos). I would not have cared most of the time, but I happened to notice that the price was $6.40 when I picked up the bottle. I didn’t want to let him get by with charging me too much. What if I had to go in there again? Would I stand for him charging me more for every purchase? I decided to nip it in the bud and pointed out to him that the price was $6.40 on the display.

He said, “That is the price for the warm ones, not the ones from the cooler.”

Most of the little stores I have been in charge more if you buy a drink already cold. It makes a little sense because they are paying for the electricity to cool it down for you.

“But, I didn’t get it from the cooler. I got it off the display.”

He said that it was cold; therefore, it had to have come out of the cooler. I told him that was fine, I would take the Coke back to the display and swap it out for another one so he could see I got it from the unrefrigerated display. I grabbed another one and handed it to him. He thought it was too cold too. So he went to the display and dug through the bottles until he found a hot one and shoved the 2 that I had already tried to buy into the cooler.

Did I mention that it was 54 degrees and all the windows and doors were open at the store? Everything was cold in there! But he managed to find one that made him feel better about loosing a little profit.

I didn’t care. I was going to put the Coke on a bus and let it sit there for 3 hours before consumption. It would be the same temperature as the outside air by the time they drank it, which ended up only being 57 degrees for the day.

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