Speedway math strikes again

My local Speedway gas station has slowly – and. I. mean. slow. ly – switched over to adding 7-Eleven products. It still has Speedway branding, the gas pumps still say Speedway, and the convenience store still offers their wonky Speedway math.

I’ve written about Speedway’s problems with math before – where they offer one price for something, but wildly twist it around if you actually USE its services.

Speedway gas stations and Common Core math

That being said … yesterday, I stopped into Speedway on my morning commute.

This was taped to the front door of the building.

Okay, now look at this picture. It clearly says that if I use my Speedy Rewards card, I can purchase 10 chicken wings for the low, low price of $5. That makes plenty of sense.

So I go into the gas station. And they have a pack of five chicken wings on one of the rotating display heaters. Well, there’s not ten wings, so I figure if ten wings equals $5, then five wings must equal $2.50. Simple math, right?

That’s simple math. That ain’t Speedway math.

I took the order of wings to the cashier.

“Do you know if you buy ten wings, it’s $5, sweetie?”

“That’s fine, I’m only buying five wings.”

She rang up my order. “That’ll be $10.”

“There must be some mistake. I bought five wings.”

“I know, sweetie, but the promo deal is ten wings for $5. If you only buy five wings, I have to charge you the full price. $10 please, sweetie.”

Oh, this is NOT going to go well.

I pointed over to the display area. “Look, even if I wanted to buy ten wings, there were only five wings available.”

“Oh, that’s no problem, sweetie,” she cooed. “I’ll just go back here and make you another order. It won’t take a minute.”

That’s right, folks, in the middle of the morning – when I have to get to the day job – she took it upon herself to leave her spot at the cash register and go back and make another order of five wings.

And her statement of “it won’t take a minute” was pretty accurate. Took 15 minutes at best. Trust me, the term “Speed” in “Speedway” didn’t apply to her cooking skills.

So now I have 10 wings, when I only wanted 5, and I paid $5, when I would have paid $10.

“There you go, sweetie.”

I took the wings, paid for them, and left.

I haven’t seen a financial transaction this mangled since the time Jack Nicholson tried to order a sandwich.

I tell you … there are days when I don’t have an idea for a blog post, and I wonder if today will be the day when, after 13 years of continuous blogging, I won’t have a topic for a day.

And then I walk into my local Speedway and I’m not disappointed.

Not at all … sweetie. 😀