Pet Peeves

We all have our pet peeves, and I have many. One of them is the prevalence of enormously long receipts.

Those of you who are my friends on Facebook saw a version of this rant a few days ago, when I groused about buying three items at the local Giant (a chain grocery store), and receiving a receipt that was 20 inches long. Here's how it broke down (figures are rounded):

8 inches for the actual itemized receipt (included the name, address, and store number of the store, phone numbers for the store and its pharmacy, and the date and time of the transaction);

1/2 inch for a summary of the savings from using my frequent shopper card;

2-1/2 inches to tell me that I can get 10 cents per gallon off gas at a local station;

2-1/2 inches to encourage me to sign up for diabetes prevention classes through the store;

1 inch to tell me I've "saved" $113.97 this year by using their frequent shopper card;

3/4 inch to show a truncated version of my customer number;

1-1/2 inches for the store manager to thank me for shopping at his store and suggest I visit their website for more information;

2-1/2 inches to encourage me to participate in an online survey; and,

2 inches to summarize the date, time, and other information about the transaction (all of it, except for the identification of the checkout terminal) already summarized in the first 8 inches.

Total: 20 inches for three items. Oy, vey.

My friend Charley asked if it was longer than the receipts I used to get from the CVS pharmacy in the Pentagon, which were notorious for their length*. Actually, I did get longer receipts from CVS, but they were longer because they added - on average - seven feet of coupons for stuff I'd never need, whereas the Giant has a second printer at each checkout that prints coupons separately (and in living color, no less) for every transaction. Another friend, Hank, called it madness, rhetorically asking how many helpless trees had given their lives for yard-long receipts. And my friend Shawna (for once not employing a pun, although that was surely an oversight) wondered why we aren't give the option for long or short receipts to save paper.

Of course, I always want to receive a receipt when I purchase something, so that I can have proof of the purchase, vet my credit card statement when it arrives, and exchange or return items when necessary. But a receipt nearly a yard long for three items? That, as Hank said, is madness.

But one wonders whether trees who gave their lives for receipts would feel better about it than trees who gave their lives for signs at Donald Trump rallies.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

P.S. - I'm still on call for jury duty ... the next time I've been told to call for a status update is after 6:00 PM on Friday. Sigh.

* I never actually measured any of the CVS receipts, but I'm absolutely certain that many of them exceeded a full yard.