Chair Force Engineer

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Lowe Blow

I was in Lowe's today, executing my primary duty of buying blinds for an office building. While the deals on blinds weren't as good as Home Depot's, I wound up buying a can of lubricant for my car.

While processing through the checkout, I flashed my ID card past the cashier to get the 10% military discount. The cashier had never seen a Common Access Card (with embedded microchip, which works in PC card readers) before. She was only used to seeing the colored cards used by reservists and military dependents. She called in for the gastropod-looking manager to approve the discount.

By the time the manager waddled near the cash register, the checkout process had taken far too long. I didn't want to hold up the line any more, and I knew that 10% of a $5.00 item wasn't worth the fight. I gave up on the discount, paid full price, and got the hell out of there.

The moral of the story is that Lowe's "military discount" is an empty promise, at least if you're active duty. I think I'll be taking my business to Home Depot for now on.