Showing posts with label Korea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Korea. Show all posts

Friday, September 9, 2011

Introducing the 50-cent lemon

The rind of a lemon is exceptionally bitter, w...Image via Wikipedia


My wife called from the ShopRite in Englewood, where she was picking up an Ace bandage and a painkiller for our son, who saw a doctor for his sprained foot. Did I need anything?


I also saw a doctor in Englewood on Thursday, and picked up 4.5 pounds of fresh king whiting at H Mart for a fried-fish dinner ($3.99 a pound). But we had run out of lemons, so I asked her to pick one up.


When she got home, I looked at the receipt and was shocked to see a single lemon cost 50 cents.


We usually buy them at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, and today, I went there to pick up photos and get more lemons.


I bought a 5-pound bag of lemons from Chile for $6.79. That works out to about 57 cents for each of the dozen lemons in the net bag, although these are almost twice the size of the ShopRite lemon.


When did lemons get so expensive? 


H Mart credit


In an earlier post, I described how I returned a stainless-steel pot that started to rust to the H Mart in Little Ferry and how getting a $19.99 credit wasn't easy.


But I made sure to ask whether I could use the credit at other H Mart stores, including the ones in Englewood and Fort Lee. I was told I could.


I put the credit slip in my wallet and wanted to use it in the Englewood store on Thursday, when I bought the whole whiting, a 20-package box of spicy Shin Ramyun, green-leaf lettuce, a freshly made seaweed-rice-vegetable roll, white peaches and Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce. 


My total was $46.32. The cashier accepted a few H Mart coupons, but wouldn't take the credit slip, saying it wasn't good at that store.


She got on the phone, and another woman came over, but she said I couldn't use the slip, either. I protested, and said I was told it was good at any H Mart.


Finally, she called over another employee and he OK'd it.


There must be a lot of bureaucracy in Korea.



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