cotton and coupons

My children are on a nail polish kick. The older one has a friend in her suite in college who is especially proficient at doing nails so whenever she comes home, she has a fresh coat of polish on. The younger one wants to learn to do it herself and experimenting with it is one of the things that keeps her busy. All things considered, it is pretty inexpensive to work on it yourself. Trial and error, see what works. Easy enough to remove if it's a fail. Unlike hair dye, nail polish is a lot less investment on my part. So the kids have been going through my bottle of Remove+ which is Zoya's super efficient remover. I decided I was going to walk to the nearest Ulta and get them their own bottle.

I opened the Ulta app on my phone and found a curious set of coupons. $10 off of $40 or $20 off of $100. Then there is another one for 20% off your entire purchase that expires on Christmas. I asked the whole family in the car, which is better? 10 off 40 or 20 off 100? I knew the answer was definitely $10 off of a $40 purchase but it didn't make sense to me why a store would offer a coupon that has you spending more to get less of a discount. We discussed the possibilities. Is it new math? Is it an error that they didn't realize they had made? Or maybe realized too late, when the promo was already revealed to the public? If that happened, I would just ignore it because nothing is going to upset people more than a merchant taking away a coupon because it was erroneous. Besides, if a customer spends more and gets a smaller discount, the store wins. So I decide I'm going for the 40.

In store, I realized that the two things I came for, a bottle of Remove+ and an eyeshadow palette come to $39 <sad face> my husband suggested I get some cotton, which makes perfect sense. A $1 filler to get me to 40. Except I couldn't recall where I had seen the cotton. It was no longer where it used to be in front of the store so I asked the first associate that I saw, "Can you help me find the cotton?" The lady was petite, with a headscarf and a mask so all I could see were her eyes. But that was all I needed to see to know that she was confused. She asked me to repeat and I said, "The cotton? Do you know where I can find the cotton?" The look that says, "Lady, why are you asking me if we sell moon rocks? I don't even know how to find that in the system." She brings out the little scanner device and types something in, continuing to look confused. She asked me again what I was looking for. So I said, "Cotton balls? For this?" Lifting the bottle of nail polish remover in my hand. She said, "You want to use it for that?" Again, as if I had asked for moon rocks, or rare diamonds, or plutonium. I thought about walking away but then I tried another tactic. "Cotton," I said. C-O-T-T-O-N. She gets the device again, seemingly trying to remember what I had spelled so I repeated the spelling and she types. Finally, she says, "Oh I know what you're looking for." She then takes me back to where I got the nail polish remover. There it was, a wall of cotton products. Of course, it took me awhile to find the least expensive one on the shelf. A bag of cotton balls for $1.99, sure why not? Wow, everything is so expensive now. I was worried for a second that the cheapest thing was $4 or $6, which makes the savings less. But, oh my, what a journey that was to get here. To buy cotton. It's a hard word, if you're not used to English. The way the T's aren't aspirated and it just sounds like cot-un. I don't think there was anything wrong with the way I said it. Judging from her accent though, it was just a problem of not being as well-versed with the language maybe?

Or maybe it's like when I ask Siri what is in Huevos Rancheros. I tried 3 times and Siri did not get what I was trying to say. My husband said, maybe it's the way I say it and to try pronouncing it like American. I see. Way-Voes Ran-chay-rose. Got it. And of course, Siri finally gets it. I mean, seriously? Why bother pronouncing it correctly? Ugh. So annoying. It was faster to just type it. But at least Siri understands when I say cotton. Good help is hard to find.

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