There's quite a few retirees on the street we live on. Actually, in the entire neighbourhood. Which, I suppose, is consistent with demographic statistics from Statistics Canada highlighting the growing 'elderliness' of Canada's population as a whole. We've noticed, my husband and I, how common it has become for the silver-haired crowd to go on regular supermarket prowls hunting for treasures. Treasures for them have become the food bargains to be had through coupon-clipping and avid perusals of weekly supermarket advertisements.

I'd seen some of our neighbours in the supermarket where I regularly shop and have done for decades because it has the lowest prices and a good choice selection along with fresh produce in abundance. Invariably, their shopping carts have been mostly bare; just a few choice selections. "Choice" because what they select happen to be the sale items of note in any given week. They frankly tell me that they go from store to store picking up an item here, another there, until they've exhausted the red-circled supermarket-flyers they set out with on their weekly expeditions.

These are not impecunious people; they are people with a heightened sense of cupidity as I see it. Our neighbours, and others we see flocking to markets for sale-of-the-week loss-leaders are well-off property owners. And their enthusiasm for this focus they have conceived on 'value' for their grocery dollar amazes me. For one thing, food, good wholesome whole foods, are not expensive in this country. We are fortunate to be able to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables flown in from far-off places of the world that export their prized produce, and where it is on scant display in the countries of origin.

Our own local harvests are being sold in supermarkets; the abundance and selection is mind-boggling. The weekly food bill for most people is relatively modest. But this game of stalking supermarket shelves to come home with weekly bargains appears to be a favourite with people who obviously have little better to waste their time with.

On Friday, an elderly couple was in the check-out cashier before me. And there was a hold-up. The cashier, a patient, obliging and cheerful woman I've become familiar with, one of the few who never complains when I place a bagful of items meant for the food bank that she has to run through the cash and then re-bag (something that young, school-age cashiers resent), was dealing with their demands. They had bought a total of four items, two of which were advertised, they said, as "two-for-one".

It wasn't in the flyer which the cashier had on hand as they tend to do when there are special sales. The tall, righteous looking husband went off to retrieve the sign he said hung where the items were shelved. The cashier called for a young man who stocks shelves to validate their contention that they were being cheated out of $4.98. He did due diligence, and came back to report to the cashier and the two petulantly-demanding elders that the sign had been placed by someone where it didn't belong, and it didn't refer to the items they'd bought; bottled name-brand Cranberry juice.

Their faces looked like thunder; the woman had sidled up to me while the clerk was checking things to ask me in a confidential tone of voice if this store returned the full price of what customers pay if their computerized pricing isn't up to date. I didn't know, said they did at one time. When it became clear that they had picked up items not on sale their consternation and anger was palpable. A head cashier was called, and she placated them by informing the pair that for them, this very day, the items would be available at two-for-one, and the storm clouds cleared, as they beamed with satisfaction.

Ugh!