Marty PSA

Warehouse clubs are a bit of a gamble. You might find a real bargain, and the deal you find may only be relative to the product. Brand names might well be cheaper per item than in a regular grocery store. But a store brand could be less expensive. And let's be honest: corn is corn. What difference does it make what label is on the can?

As such, I resisted the monstrous box of Cherrios offered me at my warehouse store yesterday. I like Cherrios well enough yet I don't want to have to eat them just to get rid of them, and store brand rolled oats so far as I can tell taste about the same, yet cheaper.

That does not of course mean there are no bargains at a big box store. I found vitamin D soft gels (I take one per day for vertigo) at a great price: two years worth for ten bucks, where a year's worth has been costing me $18. The allergy pills which I also take once a day were $15 for 365 tablets. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a year's supply. The over the counter store brand with a 30 count was costing thirteen bucks every month. I checked the expiration dates, too: well after I will have consumed the pills.

So in doing the math, I saved $167 on both. By themselves that paid my year's membership while leaving me $112 ahead. And that's just two examples.

What it means is that if you're judicious, warehouse stores are worth the membership. Just avoid the Cherrios.

A public service announcement

I just want to take a moment here to remind everyone that if you play music too loudly, it will annoy the neighbors.

Other good ways to annoy the neighbors are to take their parking spaces, allow your dog to bark at all hours of the night, leave your bulk trash on their curb, and burn copious amounts of incense next to wide open windows backed by fans on low to blow the smell straight into their houses.

You're welcome.

A Public Service Announcement

Yes, this is. What do you think, a Republican can't put the public interest first?

As a sales representative for Electric Eel drain cleaning equipment for thirty years now, I just want to give my readers a bit of advice. If your drains back up, don't let the service tech who you call put a camera in the line without making a good faith effort to open the line first with a traditional steel cable snake machine. Make them work 30-45 minutes before discussing any other options.

Why? Because an awful lot of unscrupulous companies out there want to camera your lines first in order to sell you on a more costly job of some sort. If what you have is a run of the mill plug, tree roots or a plain old waste overload for example, a competent drain cleaning professional will have that opened in about a half an hour. You likely will not have further troubles for several years after that.

If problems persist, THEN allow them to camera. Sticking a camera in a hole in the floor, well, it's going to look bad. It's a sewer. Using a camera thus is merely a scare tactic. They'll try to sell you a re-pipe based on the line appearing bad when it really only has the remnants of sewage along the way.

Someone may try to tell you it makes more sense to camera initially. Bull-oney. No one in his right mind will put a camera in a line filled with water and sewage first: the debris must be gotten out of the way, either with a pump or by punching a hole in the blockage in the old fashioned manner, with a snake. May as well make them open the line first.

Do as you will, but if you get told you need an unnecessary $5,000 line repair like my unsuspecting sister-in-law did, don't say I didn't warn you.