2 Cheap

My father, who will be turning 77 in a couple of weeks, is looking for a cane that would help give him a little stability for occasions when he might be on his feet for awhile. He alerted Barb and I to keep our eyes out for a wooden cane at garage sales.

I've been checking out Goodwill stores also for canes without much luck. That is until Thursday of this last week. I walked in and just as I had experienced in other stores, there were no canes in the front of this store either. (The front is where they would place them if they had them.) I decided to quickly peruse the store to see if anything else might catch my attention. As I passed the golf clubs, there was a wooden cane with a plastic putting head attached to the bottom, and a plastic golf ball attached further up with a card that said "Old golfers never die, they just loose their balls." With my ability to see more than what is there, I visually removed the plastic ball and card along with the plastic putting head that was attached with a screw. I then visualized a rubber cap on the end, something that I thought I might be able to pick up at a drug store, and voila! A wooden cane appeared before me.

I took a look at the price tag. Four dollars. Not bad. In fact a very good deal, but wait. Saturday was going to be 50% off. That means that the cane would be $2. An excellent deal. Dad would be proud. Dad would never guess how little I paid for it. It was Thursday and Saturday was only a few days away. No one would buy this in the short time that existed between then and Saturday.

Saturday I arrived at Goodwill at a little after 8:00 am. The parking lot was empty. As I drove by the door I saw that it didn't open until 9:00 am. It wasn't a tragedy. It gave me time to run by my office and pick up a screwdriver to remove the putting head. I meant to bring one from home, but forgot.

When I returned at about 8:40, there were a half a dozen cars now waiting for the store to open. I was still not worried. What would be the chance that one of these individuals was waiting to purchase a humorous birthday gift for a golfing buddy? I settled back and caught up on some periodicals related to the informational technology industry.

The time finally arrived. People had exited their cars and were standing outside when the doors open. I sauntered in and headed directly back to the golf clubs. All my eyes could see were metal shafts. What happened to the obvious wooden shaft that I has seen only two days ago? It wasn't here any more. It must have been moved to another part of the store. I wandered the store for the next little while to no avail. It was gone. I lost an excellent deal by being $2 too cheap.