I’m traveling back to St. Louis for the weekend. I need gas and a bathroom break so I pull into one of the many Pilot truck stop/gas stations on I-55. I gas up my car and when I am done the receipt pops out of the pump. I notice on the bottom is a coupon for a $1 coffee, tea, some other drink and I vaguely notice the word muffin.
I had planned on getting coffee anyway so after my bathroom break I get one. The coupon is going to save me about 40 cents. As old Ben said, “A penny saved is a penny earned.”
I take my coffee and coupon up to the counter and hand the coupon to the young lady behind the register. She looks at the coupon and tells me, “You have to get a muffin with this.”
“I don’t want a muffin, just the coffee”, I replied.
She then starts talking to me real slow like I am dense, “You have to get a muffin to use the coupon.”
I reply, “Fine, no big deal, let’s just forget about the coupon. Just ring up my coffee.”
“But you have the coupon and you get the coffee and muffin for a dollar. If you don’t want the muffin just throw it away when you get outside.” She then offers to go get the muffin for me.
At this point I just want to pay for my coffee and get out of there so I say, “Fine.”
She gets the muffin and rings up the coffee and the muffin then applies the coupon. My total comes to $1.08 with the tax. As I am paying for my coffee and my unwanted muffin the sarcastic side of me comes to the forefront and I remark, “What MBA dreamed up this brilliant promotion?”
She proceeds to educate me on the finer point of truck stop sales. “It is a free sample so that when the promotion is over with you will be used to getting a muffin with your coffee. You will be in the habit, and you will buy them then.”
Mr. Sarcasm is still standing at the counter and says, “Sounds a lot like your local crack dealer down on the corner giving away ‘free’ samples.”
She is taken aback by this. I can tell she is wants to reply to my comment, but the fact that I am a customer is restraining her. Instead she just laughs nervously. I am sure she wanted to tell me that their muffins were not crack.
