As they say in the movies, the following is based upon a true incident (and as you can see by the amounts and the mention of Cub Foods [i.e. Winco] this was back in 1991):
Let us sing of my pure one –
Famous in battle
Let us take up her praise upon our lips
For ’tis fitting that we praise –
Our lips and not her own.
With firm and measured tread
She takes the Safeway, the Thriftway
The thronging CUB food aisle
Swiftly to the fray she sweeps
Where each combatant must join the list
Against the exacting foe.
(All buttoned and be-ribboned
Anxious to take its toll)
With each stroke of the infernal engine
The cents into dollars count
Pressing hard ‘gainst the family purse and budget
As to the skies they mount
Thirty-seven point eighty blink the lights azure
Thirty-seven dollars and eighty cents
A princely sum that’s sure
Yet is her brow disturbed?
-No! There is only more resolve.
For her weapons this moment sheathed
Leap out at the total called.
And 37.80 ceases flashing
From its lofty height it tumbles down.
First fifty cents are taken off
Then six dollars in a lump
Double the sum of forty
As the coupons fall like trump
The total is hacked in half
And as the haze is cleared away
Another sixth is shorn
The total mortifies in rigor at 13.64
All hail Eloise
As she leaves the field
The victor undisputed
All hail Eloise
Her booty gained
In battle well-reputed.
RWOz2