My waterproof jacket self-destructed late last year, and while Melbourne hasn’t been over-endowed with rain recently, part of my plan to become a dedicated pedestrian includes having the appropriate gear to stroll down the street no matter what the weather, so I’d been meaning to buy a new one.
Last week via some junk mail I learnt about a Snowgum clearance sale (see, junk mail occasionally has its uses) and on Friday night I took the opportunity to take a look. It was at some Godforsaken warehouse out at Clayton in a real dump of a shopping centre where I suspect normally nobody ever goes and the only movement is tumbleweeds blowing through.
To my utter surprise, they had a waterproof jacket in my size, in a half-decent colour — dark blue; the only alternative was a kind of yeuch green. And it was made of that breathable material (a Goretex clone of some kind) that doesn’t leave you sweating inside it. Half-price, thank you very much, I’ll have one of those. Tried it out on Saturday, and although I missed the bulk of the rain, it worked well.
I also got a cheapo shirt and some camping cutlery for Peter for his birthday. One thing I noticed at the time was the lady at the checkout had to try my credit card twice. I didn’t think much more about it until Monday morning when my phone rang. It was someone at the bank querying Snowgum’s two transactions — one at $1150, the other a few seconds later for a much more reasonable $115.
The bank guy assured me it would be okay; the first one shouldn’t go through. Hope he’s right.
Reminds me a little of the time I was buying $1.50 of chips at the fish’n’chips place in Elsternwick and the guy who didn’t know how to use the register accidentally hit the double-zero button, making it $15.00. Then he hit it again: $1,500.00. Then he tried the single zero: $15,000.00 ,000. He couldn’t find the cancel button and let it go through, then took my $1.50. Being a small family-operated business I assume they were able to figure out at the end of the day what caused their register to be $14998.50 out.
4 replies on “Ten times”
“Then he tried the single zero: $15,000,000. ”
Should that have been $15,000.00 ?
When I was in melbourne back in December, I found a perfect-fitting waterproof jacket for myself as well… for just $3!!!! It’s those bright fluro safety colours, perfect for when I go out sailing! Yay!
Always interesting what you may find when you are somewhere you least expect to find something… errr…
Cyalayta
Mal :)
Today I discovered that instead of paying off my ANZ credit card with internet banking, that I have been depositing money into a friend’s ANZ account. Turns out I’d paid her via Bpay for something recently and the interent banking had saved her card number instead of mine, and I didn’t realise until my bank account was overdrawn and $7000 was missing! Luckily my friend is willing to give it back, but she’s pretty shattered cos she’d been ringing the bank trying to find out where it came from, and they had no idea, so she thought she had a chance at keeping it!
***When a store (etc) makes a mistake and needs to redo the VISA, make sure you get a receipt that says the first transaction was cancelled!!!!***
Ultrex is another brand name for Goretex (and it is less expensive – in Canada anyway – than Goretex). AND make sure it is LINED!!! (The material looks like hole-y fabric.
j :)
I’m off to read the rest of the newsletter!
Have a great Easter!!!