What price a toothbrush?

At 10.30 p.m. last night when picking up an antibiotic prescription for my son from the local night pharmacy, the next in line was a pair of elderly ladies who had driven three miles from the next village to buy a toothbrush.

What was so urgent that they needed to go out, at that time of night, to a relatively insecure area that they did not know? Surely they could have survived with furry teeth for just one night, getting up and going to their local shop at 9 a.m. this morning.

As for the price - 6 euros! That's 4.50€ for the brush, including its protective cap(!) and 1.50€ night pharmacy fee. Daylight robbery, I thought. They could have gone to the local supermarket, which closes at 11 p.m., and bought a three-pack for that price, in relative security and closer to home.

There's nowt so weird as folk, as we used to say back home.

Preço Verde?

FNAC's Preços Verdes are supposedly a guarantee that their price is the lowest for the item in question. What's the guarantee, apparently none!

Yesterday, to use up a credit left over from exchanging Christmas gifts, we went to Toys R Us and bought a 32MB memory card for the PS2. Now Toys R Us is known not to be cheap, even when they give a 10% rebate to loyalty card holders. So for the rest of our shopping we went to Fnac.

At Fnac, the same memory card was 15 euros (43%!) more expensive. And the GBA that we ended up buying was 2 euros more expensive, but I wasn't going to walk all the way back to Toys R Us for two euros. Both items had Preço Verde stickers. So I pointed out the price discrepancy to the cashier - met with total indifference. He had no idea what I was talking about, nor why! Now Fnac is also not cheap. You pay for their huge product range and supposedly for their knowledgeable service. In that case, they should really be more careful with their "Best Prices".