Mystery Shopper Me

Costco got the better of my budget two weeks back and I am still recovering. I usually don't overspend, but the aisles of that store can be like a highway to the danger zone (think Kenny Loggins' tune in Top Gun). At Costco, they feed you as you push your cart along. The food is good and lots of times it is something organic, low sodium, with zero trans-fat, so you feel good about eating it. It's way too easy to start doing the I'll take one of those and two of them two step as you polka along munching free shopping snacks.

Last week we still had enough foodstuffs from my checkbook busting extravaganza, but looking into the refrigerator this morning I saw no lactose-free milk, real fake eggs, broccoli nor fish. These are staples in a reduce your cholesterol in six months or else diet. I would have to go to Aldi- the money saving superstore, where $18 in the wallet might pave the way to Friday.

I grabbed my reusable "green" bag and the cash and headed over. No quarter needed for a cart today, I was only buying broccoli and fish. The cantaloupes were $1.00, today only, I put one of those in for good measure. Just as I did so, a lean and lank, young man approached me with a cart full of five heads of lettuce, six bottles of juice and several cans of milk, half evaporated and half sweetened condensed. He looked me in the eye and said, "We do something here called mystery shopping, to make sure our cashiers are ringing customers up properly. Would you kindly take this cart through the check-out line. You won't have to pay for it and I'll give you five dollars for your trouble."

Focusing on the Aldi badge on his work shirt I asked, "Where will you be at the end of this deal?"

"I'll meet you at the end of the line and take care of the whole thing," he was resolute. Then he disappeared.

I got behind the cart with too much canned milk, acted like nothing was happening, gazed nonchalantly into the freezer at the fish I'd really be buying later and pushed up to the conveyor belt. I unloaded the lettuce, juice and cans of milk, making sure to mix the sweetened condensed and evaporated varieties together, in case it was part of "the test". The check-out guy scanned each item very fast, like they are trained to do there, dropping each into the empty cart waiting at the end of the belt. I sallied my newly empty cart up to the one now full of my undercover purchases and he said, "That'll be ________I forget how much he said it'd be, for out of the dark and stormy night, I mean back room, came the lean and lank. Without a word he stuck a key from his ring of many into the check out guy's register, popping it open. He keyed something into the register, closed the drawer and motioned for me to follow him to a different register at the empty lane behind him.

Before I followed, I whispered to the check out guy, "Did that surprise you?" His eyes were wide and he fumbled his words, "I never saw it coming," he said. I told him I hoped he'd done everything right, then stepped aside to let a customer with a real order go through.

It was the first time I'd made five bucks in five seconds.

With my earnings I bought a bag of tilapia fillets- that's fancy for fish. When the check out guy checked me out for real, I asked him how he'd scored on the test. He'd passed. Perfect.

We'll be eating all the way to Friday. Sometimes things just work out so fine.