Eighty degrees for the last day of September, and then the cold front moved in. The attenuated illusion is over.

Grocery store deal: 10 packs of cooked brats for 10 dollars. That’s amazing. I put two in the cart. I’d originally gone to the store for ketchup, something I A) rarely use now and B) somehow have run out of. I’ve never been this low on ketchup. I pride myself on being a man who is always aware of his ketchup situation. Surely there’s one in the pantry - maybe that cheap Target brand that’s perfectly fine, and maybe it didn’t expire in 2021? No. Nothing in the larder. I have mustard up to my hairline, which would be navel-height in most people, but still indicates sufficient mustard.

I think the older you get the more you lean into mustard, and away from ketchup. Mustard - even the yellow variety - is more interesting. More challenging. It doesn’t really care if you like it.

I remember when they first introduced Stone Ground Brown Mustard - all those little seeds, like a particularly puckish caviar. It was a sensation with the healthy types who shopped at the co-op and bought brown rice in bulk and listened to folk music where a guitarist was singing about the Pimento Packers Strike of 1936, or something. Grey Poupon had that brilliant ad campaign that made it the Haagen-Daaz of mustard something foreign and upscale.

BTW, do you know the origin of the name? I always knew it was fake, but:

In 1959, he decided to form a new ice cream company with what he thought to be a Danish-sounding name, Häagen-Dazs, as a tribute to Denmark's alleged exemplary treatment of Jews during World War II.

The word for “ice cream” in Danish is Flødeis. As far as I can tell it’s pronounced Flewer (l)ees.

Poupon is French for “baby doll” or “little baby.” Which is wrong somehow, and really, given how much fun we made of the Poop part, and give the occasional run of mortifying offal you get from a baby now and then, well, no. But it was the name of one of the “moutardiers” who invented it back in 1866, along with a partner, Monsieur Grey. Really.

Anyway. I got two bottles of ketchup, some corn, a few other sundry items, and went to the self checkout. Beep

Bratwurst $4.99

Oh for heaven’s sake. Waved the self-checkout attendant over, told him they were 10 for 10, and I had a flash: I wanted him to say 10 for 10? That's impossible.

Now why would I think that?

Because many, many years ago I laid awake in the dark and listened to the radio, and a fellow told a story. He'd told it before. You knew he had honed it, polished it, inflated it, put it on the lathe and shaped it to his liking.

How we loved it when Larry said he would tell the Three Scoops story, right after this! What a treat! You had to wonder whether he kept it in reserve in case he had a gastrointestinal emergency. Anyway, three scoops? That's impossible stuck with me for all these years, because radio will do that. Radio in the dark at 1 AM will really do that to you.

Anyway. The self-checkout attendant offered to go check. I said I would. I documented the situation in the brat cooler.

There was no other way to interpret that. He found a SKU in the pic and checked it and sure enough, the scanner was reading the right item, but the wrong price. How many people had paid full price for brats that night, we might never know.

I beeped the ketchup: $3.99

OH FOR GOD’S SAKE. Before waving him over again I walked back and took another picture. Then I returned to the checkout and waved him over.

“Oh, yeah, the ketchup,” he said. “That’s been coming up wrong. I saw those in your cart and was going to say something.”

Were you now.

Next: the potatoes. I put the bag on the scale, and hit the button for entering codes and prices. There’s a search field. I typed POTATO

ITEM NOT FOUND. PLEASE WAIT FOR ATTENDANT.

Oh for Crom’s sake -

He returned. “It doesn’t know from potatoes,” I said. Suddenly I'm from New York.

He said no, it doesn’t, you have to hit produce, and then the first letter. See, everything has a category.

Then why is there a search field at all? If it can’t find potatoes because I’m not in produce, what’s the point?

Well you can use the search once you’re in a category.

Right, so the UI shouldn’t have a search option outside of the category screen.

I don’t know what to tell you.

It was like every other conversation I have at a Cub: Yeah it sucks what’re you gonna do thanks have a good one.

It’s 1939.

This was a movie magazine, so you suspect it had a shopgirl clientele.

When you’re in the mood for strawberries, remember: Baby Ruth bars contain no strawberries!

But they do have that magic pick-me-up, Dextrose!

GET ALL THIS CRAP FOR FREE SOMEHOW

You go door to door selling things no one ever heard about, and can be found at the store, where the customers will go no matter what.

That’s the building in the ad, but the address isn’t 1503 Monmouth. It’s something else.

SWISH

EZE JELL

Blue Pink and Flash Red, the colors of today’s debutantes.

Certified pure, and only a dime! A DIME. You could get a lot of smell for a dime.

Buzzer-slave confesses:

One cannot look uncomfortable in the modern office:

After she is released from the buzzer shackle, she goes out on her second job, prostitute:

Kidding. But look at her! No bunching.

You just don't see many ads these days that use the word "Lesion"

Two years before, in a medical journal: INEFFICACY OF SIROIL AS A REMEDY FOR PSORIASIS

But they sold it until they absolutely were forbidden to do so.

That will do! Now we return to Sparky to study some 1970s British cartoons. (They are bad.) See you around.