Menage Trois Trader Joe's: The Deal Messiah Gets A Two For One

It has to happen at least once in every man's lifetime, and today it happened to the Deal Messiah. The mythical Menage A Trois. However, this wasn't of the sexual nature, although the Deal Messiah certainly felt gratified afterward.

I've had an old office chair up for sale on Craigslist now for at least two weeks with absolutely no interest.  Finally, out of the blue, I get a call from a German lady who just moved to the area.  However, she lives about 45 minutes away, and was really weird about coming to pick up the chair.  We decided that I would meet her friend, who happened to work at our local Trader Joe's, and I would do the deal with him there.

We're moving out of this god forsaken place at the end of the month, and it occurred to me that we probably have a bunch of food in the pantry that we're not going to use.  I did a quick sweep and pulled 3 cans of light coconut milk, a box of pumpkin pancake mix, and a bottle of maple syrup (all trader joe's brand).  What the hell, let's try to return this stuff, I seem to be able to return everything else known to man...including dog food.

Dude met me as promised outside of Trader Joe's, and I collected my $ for the used chair.  Sold sight unseen, only via photos.  I also mentioned to dude that I had a few returns to make, and asked if he could help me.  He said sure, no problem, and we went inside.

He turned out to be the assistant manager, and processed my returns in no time flat.  I got an exchange coupon worth enough to buy a sixer of their Fat Weasel Ale (7.1%) and a bottle of their Prosecco, which Mrs. Messiah can't seem to get enough of.

Excellent.  I love getting it a two-fer.

BOGO Rooms @ The Homestead Inn

The Deal Messiah recently brought his “D” game to Austin, TX. Entirely by circumstance, The Deal Messiah was given an opportunity, and as an Ayn Rand style “capitalist” maxed the opportunity out, in a big way…



I always try to run lean, so a buddy and I decided to split a room (with two beds of course). The best value was apparently the Homestead Inn. And the efficiency suite lent itself to our plans to drink multiple beers, with its full size fridge.

The room was one notch above unacceptable, but I decided to postpone "making it rain free rooms", as I was running late to meet my buddy for dinner at WhatABurger. The WhatAFish sandwich is the ticket. After popping off on 6th street, we returned to our room, and my buddy mentioned that it looked like a rat had taken a shit on his bed. Almost immediately, I called the “night manager” and started working my magic. I specifically, and drunkenly, told Cynthia to make a note so that I could address the situation with the day manager.

The next morning, I went down and explained that we had a situation the night before, and asked what they could do for me. Adam at the front desk said that he could move me to another room and possibly offer a discount. He said he would have to ask the day manager Linda.

$1.50/hr employees usually aren’t allowed to make decisions, as was the case with young Adam.

I went to check out the room, and heard some noise in the hallway. As my luck is always up, I happened to run into the manager Linda outside, and explained that we’d had an issue the previous night. I was very nice while impressing my stature upon her.

Within minutes, Linda's henchwoman was told to “Make us Happy.” Despite the hotel being full for the weekend, we were somehow upgraded to the top floor of the hotel, and each given our own suite with King bed, for the same price. I was very pleased.

FFwd to the last night of our stay, it got cold, and I noticed my heater wasn’t working. I called young Adam up to figure it out, as I had to go to dinner, and left him to his devices. Naturally, being a $1.50/hr employee, he couldn’t figure it out.

While freezing my rumpus off the entire night, I placed another complaint with the night manager. On our way out the door to the airport, I asked what they could do for me at the front desk, and they said they would be refunding us the full night stay for the previous night.
Not a bad deal overall.