Business: Shopping
Grocery Checkout History Challenge   (+12, -3)  [vote for, against]
A grocery store promotion to encourage scholarship

For every purchase under $20, the store gives you half off of your bill if you can identify a significant event in world history that occurred in the year idenitfied by the total of your bill.

A wise customer might endeavor to ensure the bill comes to $14.92 or $10.66, but that could be difficult, especially in areas with sales tax - which would be a math exercize in itself.

The clerk could quickly google your event to verify - if you get it right, you might even try to find an event for the new price for an additional half off - and so on.
-- globaltourniquet, Aug 10 2007

"Those bottles of whisky at $19.45 are selling well this week!"
-- hippo, Aug 10 2007


[hippo] - they'll just set the price at $19.98. Nothing happened in 1998.
-- globaltourniquet, Aug 10 2007


Yes - that's true. The supermarket should also give you special money-off vouchers if your checkout bill is a prime number, or a member of the Fibonacci series, or an integer power of the supermarket's "Number of the Day".
-- hippo, Aug 10 2007


Love it ! I thought I was the only one that thought like this when I get change.
-- normzone, Aug 10 2007


i don't like to be challenged when i'm checking out, but i bunned it because it reminds me of something my mother would do and love.
-- k_sra, Aug 10 2007


Here's your checkout history question: - How many pints of ice cream were purchased here last week?
-- phundug, Aug 10 2007


Kmart could have a whole ceiling of blue effect lights that randomly go off and those with a certain amount of points enter a blue light challenge
-- sukiyaki, Aug 10 2007


Magna Carta!

I just won this morning!

I just came from the grocery store, and my bill came to $10.66. Needless to say, I was thrilled. I wasn't even trying. Here's the bill:

Hungry Man Frozen Lasagne Dinner: $2.50
Box of Ginger Snaps: $2.99
6-pack of Shasta Cherry Cola: $1.50
Vaseline Petroleum Jelly: $2.29
Box of Mentos: $1.09

CA sales tax: .29

Total: $10.66!

The Mentos were a total impulse buy, and they did it for me. Yay! The checkout lady wouldn't give me the half off, though. But it's OK, the victory was its own reward.
-- globaltourniquet, Aug 17 2007


globaltourniquet, maybe she just knew when the Magna Carta was signed. You should try again next week.

Your grocery bill sounds like you had a real party of an evening!
-- partdavid, Aug 17 2007


//Magna Carta!//

//10.66//

At first I was going to bone this idea because I thought it would be too easy to win the discount - the store would lose money hand over fist.

Maybe I was wrong about that.
-- imaginality, Aug 17 2007


$10.66, $12.15, what's the difference, after all?

When I say "Magna Carta", I always mean "Battle of Hastings". Most people forget that.
-- globaltourniquet, Aug 17 2007


How significant is significant?
-- LoriZ, May 27 2010


yea, it's not like cellphones have things like calculators and Google on them or nuthin'...

"Management reserves the right to add/subtract a random number... and what are those wires coming off those sunglasses for, young man ?"

[ ] It has to be balanced: a couple bucks off if you're right and a couple bucks on if you're wrong, and History shouldn't be the only category. Or just a roll of the (house) dice.
-- FlyingToaster, May 28 2010


I thought you were going to quiz the person on their own purchasing history, or maybe on the exact price of something in their cart, a-la "Price is Right". :)
-- paix120, May 29 2010



random, halfbakery