We were having a heat wave. 6 days of above 100 F weather. And I was running low on my sugar free popsicles. So were the stores in my area.
I went to 6 major local supermarkets and stores (including 7-11) and none had my sugar free popsicles. No, I was not obsessed, I was just curious to see if any food stores had them in stock during both a heat wave and a major end-of-summer holiday. They didn't. On my way home, on a whim I decided to stop at my local CVS pharmacy to see if they had my orange, cherry and grape sugar free popsicles. They did! OMG, the 7th store had my popsicles! I was thrilled. My mouth watered. I would not run out out of my daily evening treat. There they were, sitting on a shelf in the freezer at my local CVS, waiting for me. I opened the freezer door to get a box. I looked closer. What? WTF? The price, the price was weird. The price was way high, it must be wrong, mislabeled.
The price read $9.29. Impossible. The most I ever pay is $6.49 at vons supermarket which is around the corner from this CVS. The price at CVS was nearly $3 more. Nearly 50% more. I was stunned. I was NOT going to pay $9 for a $6 box of sugar free popsicles! I closed the freezer door and checked with a staff member at CVS and they confirmed the price. $9.29.
I walked out of the CVS. Astonished. Annoyed. Confused. And deprived of my popsicles. I refused to pay the overinflated price.
Several thoughts occurred to me. Why was CVS charging so much money for this item? It was outrageous. Maybe they were buying them from vons at $6 and reselling them for $9? And the top thoughts I had was, "Would I run out of popsicles tonight?" "Would the stores get them back in stock tomorrow?"
Luckily, I had enough popsicles for the night. The next day, I visited vons and, voila, my popsicles were back in stock! I happily bought a box, at $6.49, 30% higher than last year's normal $4.99 price.
Another realization I had was that America was no longer America. It was a country of shortages. And high inflation. More like Venezuela than America. Amerizuela.