Last week I was buying all the remaining hard-to-find pillow guts at America's #1 Murderer of Small Business.

While I was there, I decided to pick up some bananas at the low price of just 38 cents per pound.

One of my many complaints against Blight*Mar - er - Wal*Mart has been that they consistently have the wrong prices in their system. And, often the price that scans at the cash register is higher than the shelf tag! Yes - in the store's favor!

Now, I have an uncanny ability to remember the shelf prices of an entire shopping cart full of groceries, and while the cashier scans my groceries, I watch like a hawk, regardless of where I am shopping. There is nothing I enjoy less than getting home with a load of food to find out that the 2 for 1 jumbo Cheerios didn't ring up properly.

On this trip I opted for the self-checkout method, and lo and behold, the 38 cent bananas rang up at 42 cents! Those bastards. So, I got the attention of the little old man whose job it was to monitor the self-checkout lanes.

It rapidly became apparent that this man had absolutely no experience with computers aside from, perhaps, a calculator from, say, 1972. He came over and looked at the register out of some sense of obligation, but beyond that he was hopeless. He had some sort of multipurpose badge on a lanyard hanging from his neck that he would randomly scan and then press buttons madly while scanning the bananas to and fro.

Finally, a lady who must have been an off-duty Wal*Mart associate came to the rescue. She managed to use the man's badge to put in the correct price for the bananas, and to remove the other umpteen banana charges that the man managed to scan while "correcting" the error.

He seemed to think he was done with me, when I said to him, "I believe Wal*Mart's policy is that I get those bananas for free". Time stood still for a moment. The lady who had been so helpful had disappeared. He pointed out the correct price, as though that would make me forget what I had just said, so I repeated my request. I would like these bananas for free, per Wal*Mart's guarantee.

I noticed that some other customers were scanning some bananas, so I announced loudly to them, "Those bananas are scanning at the wrong price, so be sure that you get them for free!" They looked very happy as they started to wave at the little old frazzled man while pointing at their bananas with glee.

I got my 98 cents back and left.

I was tempted to go back any buy more bananas just so that I could get them for free, because I didn't have anywhere else I had to be. Also, it is fun to be a bit of an ass like that.

But, I thought better of it since we really don't like bananas that much.