Most of us consider ourselves reasonably savvy, generally good judges of situations and not easily duped.
No one wants to feel like a dummy.
And while I may have been called gullible once or twice in my personal life, I have never been a pushover in my commercial dealings – that is, until a recent fuel stop.
It started innocently enough.
I was feeling pretty good that I had stumbled on an outlet with fuel for less than $2 a litre, pumped $150 of the liquid gold into the family vehicle and bounced in to pay.
A loyalty points poster was on display, so I found the appropriate app on my phone as I waited in line, brandishing that and my EFTPOS card as I fronted the counter.
The cashier matched my joyful mood, commenting on the sunny day.
Spying my loyalty card, he whipped out two small packets of crisps with a flourish.
“You get these for free today!” he gushed.
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“Isn’t that great? And you are donating a little to the Jane McGrath Foundation in the process. See my pink shirt? We are supporting them and now you will be, too. It really is a great cause, isn’t it?”
I nodded, smiling with him. “Oh yes, a great cause,” I chimed.
I looked briefly at the charity-branded chips, wondering whether My Beloved would eat them, but figured that any food for free tasted pretty good.
I wondered how the fuel company could give me free chips and also donate to a charity, all for the price of my fuel, but I assumed they must just take a profit hit in the interest of looking good to the consumer.
But no.
It turns out I bought the chips and in doing so, I supported the charity.
Mr Sunbeam just made it all happen.
You see, my loyalty card gave me eight cents off a litre – bargain! – and Cheshire Cat cashier saw a loophole to shimmy through before I could say, “What’s going on here?”.
He leapt on my $6.32 saving like a seagull on a chip, using his cash register keys like a sword to carve off $5 for two packets of crisps, of which 20 cents apparently goes to the pink-branded charity eventually.
I wandered back through the automatic doors in a daze, my head spinning and weirdly feeling grateful for the $1.32 saving I had somehow ended up with on my $150 spend.
Good thing the chips were tasty.
Dr Jane Stephens is a UniSC journalism lecturer, media commentator and writer.
