Midwest Memo
Gifts of gifting
by Alan Shultz

On the 12th day of Christmas, instead of 12 drummers drumming, I'm considering giving a dozen of #10 business size envelopes. That's because, well it's a long story.

Last week, after paying an unusually high stack of bills, I noticed I was running low on envelopes. Later that day I wound up in the drug store hunting down shaving cream. Just down the aisle I found a nice small box of 100 business size envelopes. The price was $1.49. I was sold.

I was pleased with the price/quantity ratio of my envelope purchase. 100 was all I had room for in my desk drawer. And $1.49 was a good price. To get the "deal" on my favorite brand of shaving cream I had to buy three cans of the stuff - all shrink wrapped together. And I didn't want three cans, I wanted one. The better deal was the giant sized shave cream with bonus ounces, except that size won't fit in our medicine chest - trust me, I've tried.

Back at home my bargain envelopes turned out to be a bust. These envelopes are made of the thinnest paper I've ever felt. Talk about "see through," you can read the card inside without opening the thing. Opening the envelopes is tricky anyway, they're all stuck together.

To the office supply store I went.

At the office supply store I faced the following dilemma. The 100-count envelope box I wanted was $4.99. For an extra dollar, at $5.99, you get 500 envelopes. I didn't want 500 envelopes, didn't have room for 500 envelopes, but I couldn't justify the 100 at $4.99 versus 500 at $5.99.

When I brought my 500 envelopes home, I explained the dilemma to my wife. She advised me that we had a box of about 400 envelopes stashed away from our last envelope purchase. It turns out we had transferred about 100 of those 500 to the desk and looked hard for a spot to hide the rest.

So I'm swimming in envelopes right now, 99 really cheap ones from the drug store and about 800 in two jumbo boxes, the location of which I will forget when I repeat this little situation about 98 envelopes from now.

So... on the 12th day, 12 envelopes, followed by....

Q-Tips. My medicine cabinet will hold the small 170 count Qtip container. Oddly enough, Q-Tips and envelopes run about the same price when it comes to the small count versus the jumbo count. So...I refill from the jumbo into the small package that fits my shelf, except when I run out of the small package I usually forget where I've stashed the jumbo 500- plus, 100 free container. Right now I'm flush with Q-Tips to the tune of 860 that won't fit in my cabinet.

On the 11th day, Q-Tips followed by...

Picture hangers. I need a couple. The package has a dozen. Who hangs a dozen pictures at a time? Who knows where the little package of unused picture hangers got stashed from the last time? There's always 10 left over.

So on the 10th day, picture hangers, followed by...

Quantity pricing - it gets me every time.

Yesterday, I bought a Burger King Whopper for $2.99. I could have gotten two for $4. A couple days back my apple pie at McDonald's was 89 cents. But for 11 cents more I could have gotten. OK, I did get two. Didn't want two pies, didn't need two pies. But it was a deal.

So I'm thinking the origin of all those quantity gifts given my "True Love" in the Twelve Days of Christmas, well they simply reflect quantity pricing back in the olden days. One drummer drumming was probably priced like my 100 pack envelopes. For not much more True Love got a dozen drummers - who could pass that up. Swansa swimming, sure you can buy just one, but for pennies more you get an extra half dozen.

I'm working on filling out my list. Some of the days are pretty obvious.

So on the second day of Christmas, I'm going to off load the two extra shaving cream canisters. On the first day, well, it'll be the extra McDonald's apple pie at 11 cents or the Whopper for a buck.

Such a deal, he no doubt got on those f-i-v-e g-ol d-e-n-r-i-n-g-s.