A mother was raised in a poor family between world-war-one and two, in a London suburb. Her father worked as a park keeper, and mother as a housewife with two sons and her to bring up. They weren’t starving, but on her dad’s salary they had to economize. She even raised a homebred chicken which laid eggs.
The mother started working fulltime at fourteen years old and saved most of the spare income she received. When she married, like most couples she put money away to purchase her own residence, decorate it, and then fill it up with adequate furniture. She was thrifty to say the least! The woman was so frugal she managed to save some of her weekly allowance for the home, week after week until her money amassed and she became wealthy in her own eyes.
One weekday shopping at a local supermarket she purchased celery, sweet red-peppers, walnuts, and four packets of choc-chip biscuits which came to around £3.00 in her mind. Pricing wise it seemed very reasonable with the day’s high supermarket prices. However, when the last item was registered the total price hit £3.50. She was old school, meaning she had made a rough calculation mentally.
She paid for the goods at the cashier and thought, ‘if blackmail isn’t dishonest then why didn’t the cashier charge me closer to £3.00 instead of the full-price which ignored the discounted offer-prices?’
She brought it to her attention, but the cashier was already attending another client and asked her to go to the far desk to launch a complaint. On one hand she felt the scenario was petty i.e., small stuff, but then she felt obliged to set the record straight.
Take care!
Prof. Carl Boniface
Vocabulary builder:
Thrifty (adj) = frugal, economical, careful, cautious, prudent, sparing, (ant) spendthrift, extravagant.
Amassed (v) = accrued, accumulated, collected, stockpiled, hoarded
Blackmail (n) = extortion, intimidation, bribery, corruption, extraction