Chapter 36

August 17, 1977

It was at 11:14 on this surprisingly cool Tuesday morning when Benny finally received the certificate of occupancy for the house, and he was legally free to move into it. He looked at the slip of paper and put it on the kitchen counter. With a wad of bills in his pocket that was large enough to choke a horse, he and Cathy got into the van and headed to the largest department store in the area: Wal-Mart. Sandra and Tim followed in the truck with Sandra driving. They parked the vehicles side by side, as near to the entrance of the store as they could get.

They went into the store and grabbed four shopping carts, one for each of them. The ‘Great Shopping Expedition’ was about to begin. Benny stood there for a minute looking down at his shopping list. The items listed on it weren’t in any particular order, but the store was laid out according to categories of items. For example, the store had the coffee makers, toasters, and waffle irons all on the same section of shelving, while they appeared on his list on pages one, three, and four. He wished he had a tablet with a spreadsheet on it it. That would make it so much easier to keep track of what they found.

The first department they hit was ‘Bath,’ and the first shelf contained towels. Cathy grabbed four sets of dark blue towels: bath towels, hand towels, and wash clothes. Benny went through the list finding the three different items, and checked them off. Then it was shower curtains, of which they bought one. Cathy made sure that it was nearly the same color as the towels. Benny didn’t care about that, but she did, and she was the one grabbing them off the shelf. She also grabbed a package of the shower curtain rings. Benny went through the list and didn’t find shower rings on it, but he did check off the shower curtain. Then it was bath rugs, accessories, and a bathroom scale. The last hadn’t been on his list, but she added it on general principle.

The next section was ‘Bedroom.’ Cathy loaded up the cart with sheets, pillow cases, blankets, mattress protector, and a comforter. He was taking his bed from home with him, so he knew what sizes to get. He was bringing his pillows too, so didn’t need to buy any. All of these items were bulky and Cathy’s cart was filling up quickly. Benny duly checked those items off his list.

Then it was on to window treatments, where she picked up curtains for each room, curtain rods, hardware, and shades for the bedroom windows. All of the curtains were plain functional white linen. He checked the items off his list. The hardware was simple, yet functional, so that it could be installed quickly. Again, this was an area in which Benny didn’t have a preference, so Cathy went with items that could match anything he put in the room.

Then they hit the kitchenware items. Now Sandra stepped up and started loading her cart. At this point, Benny took more of an interest in what was being purchased, and handed the list over to Cathy for her to check off items. Kitchen appliances filled an entire cart. The items themselves weren’t that big, but the packaging increased the volume significantly. A ‘Mister Coffee’ coffeemaker, a toaster, a waffle maker, a crock pot, a blender, an electric skillet, and a mixer filled a cart. Tim took over pushing her cart while she went on to load another cart with pots, pans, bake ware, cookie trays, baking dishes, kitchen utensils, measuring cups, a pizza pan, and a timer. The kitchen utensils seemed never ending. Then she reached the knife sets and picked out one with knives and a wood block for holding them. Cutting boards were not on the list but one went into the shopping cart anyway. She picked out a set of silverware for eight. Then place settings for eight which was followed by glasses for eight in large, medium, and small. She picked out storage containers of various sizes.

Then it was on to the home care section. His cart soon filling up with mops, brooms, sponges, and cleaning solutions of various kinds. Waste baskets and plastic bags for them were soon added to the cart. He picked out a small vacuum cleaner. Then he went over to the section with lamps and bought enough for the rooms that required lighting. Light bulbs were an afterthought.

He went over his list and found that he had not picked up a dish drying rack, coasters, coffee cups, or a tea pot. They went back to where those products could be found and added them to the cart. By now, people were taking notice of them. A store employee followed them discreetly.

They went to get into line when the manager came over and opened a new line specifically for them knowing that once they started it would be some time before they would reach the bottom of the last cart. It was obvious from the start that the person the manager put at the cash register was a relatively new employee.

Things went well for about thirty items and then it was full stop. They needed a price check on an item. The person ringing them up stopped and waited until the person who went to check out the price returned. A few more items were rung up and then there was another item requiring a price check. He stopped to wait for the runner to return.

Tim asked, “Can’t you ring up other items while they’re checking the price on that one?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“This is how I was told to do it.”

“Well, why don’t you set it aside, and when the person returns with a price, you ring it up then.”

“No.”

Benny said, “He’s got the brains of an amoeba.”

Cathy said, “I don’t get it. An amoeba is a single celled organism. It doesn’t have brains.”

“Exactly so.”

It wasn’t until the guy had nearly finished ringing up the second cart when the manager happened to notice what was happening. It was pretty obvious that he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He went over to fix the problem.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m waiting for a price check.”

“Why aren’t you ringing up the other items?”

“You told me to wait until I have a price to ring up the item. I’m waiting until I have a price check.”

The manager had to keep himself from saying something very unflattering to the guy. He rubbed his forehead wondering if the guy was possibly that dense. Obviously, he was that dense. He looked over at the four people waiting and could see they were losing patience.

“That doesn’t mean that you can’t ring up other things until you get the price.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

He watched the guy ring up a few more items. On seeing him ring up one of the items, the manager’s head dropped and he uttered an oath.

“Did you see the sale tag on that?”

“What sale tag?”

“The one right above your thumb.”

“What about it?”

“What’s the price on it?”

“Ninety nine cents.”

“How much did you charge them for it?”

“The big price on the package.”

“How much was it?”

“A dollar thirty nine.”

“Why didn’t you charge him the sale price?”

“I just put in the price on the package. I don’t look at all of the little stickers.”

Tim and Benny looked at each other. One of the things they had grown used to in the future was the scanners at stores. People didn’t enter the prices, they scanned the bar code on the item and the price was looked up in a database.

Tim said, “Someday.”

“I hope it is someday soon.”

The manager pulled the kid away from the register. He voided the sale and started over. He was a whole lot faster and more accurate. He hit one of the items that had required a price check and sent the guy to look it up. He was through with the rest of the cart before the guy came back with a price.

Even with the manager ringing up the sale, it took time to get through the four carts of items. There were a half dozen price checks. It seemed like each price check took longer than the one before. Finally, he rang up the last item. Pressed the button to calculate the taxes and rang up the total.

Tim, Benny, Cathy, and Sandra stared at the amount on the register. They were experiencing ‘sticker shock.’ Tim and Benny had begun to think of prices as being cheaper in 1977 than in 2017. They were selling houses for around $40,000 which would one day bring in $140,000 or possibly $200,000. The broken arm had cost $235 dollars to treat. In the future it could be more than $4,000.

The problem with that kind of experience was that it didn’t transfer over to everything. The drip coffee maker cost $19.95 in the future while still costing $19.95 in 1977. A lot of manufactured items were the same price or higher priced than their equivalent products in the future. Yet, the $19.95 of 1977 which required 9 hours of minimum wage work to earn, was much more precious than the $19.95 of 2017 which required 2.5 hours of work to earn.

The number which was showing on the cash register was an astonishing $1,134. Cathy and Sandra had never seen a single sale in a regular store receipt that had cost so much. Tim and Benny had been expecting the total to be about a third of that. Fortunately, Benny had a wad of cash in his pocket since he was expecting to go furniture shopping next.

Without looking too flustered, Benny paid for his purchases. Everyone watched him peel off twelve one hundred dollar bills from his roll. It was pretty obvious that he had more money than that left. The manager made change and closed the register.

They pushed the carts outside, where they loaded them into the van. The smaller items had been packed in paper bags. The larger box items were left loose. The back of the van was pretty full, so they put some of the larger boxed items in the bed of the pickup truck.

They returned to the house rather than go on to the furniture store as had been planned. The truck and van were unloaded. The linens and other cloth items were put away where they were to be stored. The boxed items were unpacked and those that had to be washed before use were set aside. In the process, they discovered some items that Benny hadn’t put in any of the carts, but were necessary; such as a flatware tray, dish rags, and kitchen towels.

While Cathy and Sandra took care of washing the dishes, cookware, and flatware, Benny and Tim went off to talk. Of course, the subject of the talk was going to be about the budget.

“You spent about $800 more than you budgeted.”

“I was shocked by how much it came to. I looked at the prices, but I never thought to add them up.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get furniture.”

“Can you afford it now?”

“I’ll get a couch, two chairs, and a coffee table for the living room. I’ll get a less expensive dinner table and chairs. I’ll talk to my parents about taking all of my bedroom furniture rather than just the bed. I’ll get a twin sized box spring and mattress set for the one guest room. I’ll use a simple metal frame for the bed. I’ll leave the other room empty for now.”

“The living room will be dark if you don’t use some lamps in it. You’ll need end tables for the lamps you bought.”

“You’re right.”

“You need a desk.”

“I’m not getting one of those ‘assemble your own’ desks. I want a quality desk.”

“Let’s see if there’s an alternative,” Tim said.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. You think about a place to get good quality furniture cheap,” Tim said.

Benny stared off to the horizon for a moment. “There are garage sales, but people are getting rid of what they don’t want to keep. We might find something good, but the odds are against it. What we want is something someone wants to keep, but can’t.”

“And?” Tim asked knowing Benny hadn’t completed his plan yet.

“How about an estate auction?”

“Antiques are expensive.”

“Antiques are expensive when a dealer sells them. They are cheaper when the dealer buys them. All we have to do is go where the dealers are buying and outbid them.”

“That’s not a bad idea. For now, you can use two sawhorses and a sheet of plywood until we locate a good desk. We’ve got the sawhorses and a sheet of plywood. Cover the plywood with a desk protector and you’re good to go.”