Coffee sold at a price that’s sure to annoy

There are many things in this world that rate as minor aggravations, but the cup of coffee – or any other item, for that matter – that retails for $1.01 has got to be high on the list. That’s what I paid for a coffee-to-go at the drive-through window of a local fast-food joint one recent evening on my way to a University of Maine hockey game.

A dollar and one cent? “Surely, you jest,” I said to the pert young 20-something who took my order. “I’m afraid not, Big Guy,” she replied. “And my name’s not Shirley.” She laid the sad state of affairs to the state sales tax of 7 percent on prepared foods.

I ponied up like the good soldier I am, muttering to no one in particular as I drove away that you’d think the establishment might round off the deal at an even dollar and be done with it, making things more convenient for all parties concerned – customer, clerk, company bookkeeper, the state sales tax crowd, the stickup artist lurking in the parking lot awaiting his chance to hold up the joint at closing time.

You’d think wrong, of course. Pegging the coffee at an even buck might make things too simple, might cheat the customer of the pleasure of handing the clerk two one-dollar bills in order to get back half a pound of change with his coffee. And where’s the fun in that?

The average bear who pays $1.01 for a cup of coffee, having more pressing problems to occupy his mind, probably shrugs if off, chalking the bizarre price up to the state sales tax, as the aforementioned fast-food clerk had done.

But others more inclined to over-analyze things might ask the obvious question: If the guy who sets the rate for coffee is smart enough to come up with a price of a dollar and one cent, including sales tax, shouldn’t he also be bright enough to do the math so a cup of coffee will cost an even dollar, tax included, in behalf of a smooth transaction?

Granted, the presumption that the business wants a smooth transaction in the first place may be a reach on my part. There may, in fact, be businesses whose managers lie awake nights calculating how they can drive their customers nuts by slapping a sticker price of a dollar and one cent on more of their merchandise, I suppose, although that chain that sells every item in its stores for a dollar would not figure to be one. When it comes to effective advertising slogans, “Everything For A Dollar” trumps “Everything For A Dollar And One Cent.”

The American consumer is seduced by a pricing structure in which most price tags end in “.99,” thanks to the advertising and marketing geniuses of Madison Avenue, who long ago discovered that a $600 sofa will sell easier if you call it a $599.99 sofa. For the vendor, double nines after the decimal point on the price tag can turn a clunker into a sale. Double zeros can keep the clunker on the sales room floor a while longer.

The same psychology pertains to the wheelbarrow that costs $39.99, rather than 40 bucks; the frayed and faded jeans that sell for $19.99 instead of $20; or the big-ticket item advertised as “priced under $20,000” which carries a price tag of $19,999.99 and requires anyone promoting such an offer to have no shame whatsoever.

But perhaps nothing better illustrates how the Madison Avenue geniuses have benumbed the purchasing public than the gasoline-pricing lashup. Here the sleight of hand involves tenths of cents, rather than whole pennies, the results indicating that vast hordes of customers obviously skipped school on the day the teacher explained the fractions thing.

Show me gasoline advertised at $2.43.9 per gallon, say, and I will show you an unbroken parade of goobers passing by who will mentally compute the rounded-off price as $2.43 per gallon, rather than $2.44. Big Oil will never go broke relying on the inability of the natives to read a gasoline pump, believe me.

Here, a disclaimer of sorts. Yes, I am painfully aware that I have flogged this sorry subject to within an inch of its life on numerous occasions, to no avail. But we are in a new year, and, unfortunately, my contract allows a new shot at educating the masses.

Consider the alternative, however: Endless whining about the aggravation of coffee priced at a dollar and one cent per cup. I suspect you wouldn’t want to be subjected to that.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.