Nice Guys Finish Last

Some Aspies like to be first and/or last with things. It's like all-or-nothing; no ambiguity there.

For example (well, until I click "Publish Post" anyway), I'm probably the only creature in the universe who recalls that I was the first person in the dining hall for the Fall 1991 semester.

On the other hand, recently I got the last two boxes of fudge mint cookies at the supermarket. If there weren't literally dozens of other varieties of cookies there in plentiful supply, I would likely have left one behind. But since there were lots of other kinds of cookies there, and I know the supermarket restocks regularly, hey I snagged the last two boxes!

And earlier today, I headed down to Office Depot for two 16-gig flash drives. The flash-drive cabinet (which is locked because we're talking about mobile memory in all senses of the term!) only had one on sale. Hoping against hope, I asked the sales associate if there was one more in stock. There was - exactly one more. (Lexar was holding a sale for some reason; Office Depot stocks other flash drive brands too.)

Yay for speaking up - even if odds are the next nine+ times whatever store I'm in won't have any more in storage. (Stores often - but not always - have every item on the shelves; sometimes they have the manufacturers restock the shelves themselves so the items don't even see storage).

But, nothing to lose by asking, and I really wanted two at the same low price (Emily's and my new laptops need large flash drives to save the backup recovery files, so if either of our laptops goes down for the count we can at least restore it to the way it was when the UPS guy dropped the package on our porch, knocked on our door once and headed back to his truck without knowing for sure if we were even alive*).

And, the sale ends today (well, ended since the store's closed now). I've got both their remaining on-sale 16-gig flash drives. Life is good.

[*] Remember those kids who knocked on people's doors and ran away? Guess what they do for a living now.