Do You Check Your Receipts?

It was a beautiful cool morning yesterday.  In fact, it's been almost frigid at 68 degrees in the mornings.  I go around and open up every door to let in the fresh air.  Then it's on to normal things, like preparing a first class breakfast for the puppies and Jonathan.  I think they eat better than I do.

Having run out of Cooper's chicken, I made a quick trip to Safeway, picked up a few things and rushed back home.

Do you check your receipts?  I do not, but that will change as of yesterday.  When I got home to cut up the chicken, it was raw in the middle.  Here's the other thing .... I never complain except to my friends, or in this case, the dogs and cats.

I decided to take the price tag back to the store and tell them ... a FIRST for me.  For no reason whatsoever, I checked the receipt.  Honestly, I couldn't even FIND the chicken.  Farmhouse Bacon??  What was that?   Expensive avocados?  Check.  Finally, at the very bottom, OPN NAT WH.  What the heck was that?

I went back over everything I purchased, even putting it out on the table.  Finally it dawned on me ... that was the chicken and they charged me for TWO!!!  Hey, I only bought ONE!!

Back to the store I went, asking for a Manager.  I explained about the raw chicken, but that it didn't really matter since I was feeding it to my dog.  But I wasn't happy about being charged for two chickens.  She refunded me the entire $17.98 with a smile.

The moral of the story?  Always give your receipts a once over.  It might save you lots of money.  I mean really, that could be two lousy tacos and a lemonade!!

On the way home, I looked down this road for the umpteenth time.  There is a long string of geocaches set out in remembrance of his Vietnam buddies, most of whom did not survive.  I figured it was an appropriate day to check them out.

With no one in sight, I tromped through the mesquite trees and creosote bushes, always keeping a wary eye out for snakes.  You follow the arrow on your phone map until you are within several feet, then you try to find either the box or tube, whatever it is that contains a log sheet for you to sign.

It's like a fun treasure hunt!  Kind of fun anyway, until you get your hair caught up in the tree branches and your legs scratched from trying to skinny between the bushes.  I definitely should have worn long pants.

Luckily I found about four before being bit by a HUGE ant the size of Cooper.  Okay ... enough of THAT!!  I headed back home to discover four bites on my legs from something caustic.  They itch like crazy.  Are there no-seeums here?  Geocaching ... it's so FUN!!!

Once home, I did the once around check just to be sure there were no creatures to add to my marks on the wall.  Just like notches on a gun handle ... Dead Spiders - 3.  Dead Scorpions - 2.  Hopefully there won't be any more added to that anytime soon!!

There's one more thing you need to check besides your receipts.  Really check out those emails you receive before clicking them open.  I received one from Pay Pal who wanted proof of income before verifying my credit.  I don't even have a Pay Pal account ... but if you do, NEVER verify anything.  It's a scam.

One more from Barclaycard U.S.  It's mandatory that you verify this information before your on-line banking can be restored.  On my computer, which is a Mac, if I move the mouse over the name (without clicking) it will show a small downward facing arrow.  If I click on that arrow, it shows the entire address of the sender.  You can easily tell it's not from Barclaycard.

Same goes for one I received from Apple about not being able to log into my account.  Verify information.  That one almost got me since I had recently had a problem signing in to update my phone.  I checked the sender's address ... it was totally a fake, even though it looked absolutely real.  BEWARE of people trying to sneak into your back pocket.

I think I'm up for a little more thrashing and crashing today ... I'm going to hit the rest of those geocaches .... with long pants and cowboy boots.