The 50% off conspiracy

Whenever I see a sale, I become a tad bit skeptical. Why are they marking this down? What's wrong with it? With food items, it usually has something to do with the expiration date. If the time frame is acceptable, I usually let my guard down and buy into the sale.

When I went to Duty Free last Sunday, I spotted a sign announcing a 50% discount for Lay's Potato Chips. So I could get a $2.40 bag of chips for only $1.20? Sounds like a good deal!

But wait! Why was it double tagged? Did they raise the price before offering a 50% discount? Devious huh. But I was one step ahead of them. I would have to take it upon myself to get my mom to buy a bag so I can investigate.

Hmm... Now could do I remove the tag properly? I decided to turn to the Web for help. This envelope steaming trick turned out to be rather educational though it didn't really help much. It also came with a stern warning:

LOLed at this. Actually, I just sorta hehe-ed at it.

With my patience wearing thin--which quite coincidentally coincided with the bag of chips running out--I decided to do the old-fashioned thing and rip the price tag out with my manly ferociousness. Okay, so I accidentally did this because I was hoping there would be chips left at the bottom of the bag. Still, it was ferocious.

Success! I have, with my superior sleuthing skills, discovered a conspiracy of the highest order. (Well, not really the highest, but that make me sound cool, and I like sounding cool.) I've finally proven what we've all merely suspected all these years. *eye squint* They actually jack prices up before they offer discounts!

They cheated us by... er... $0.15? What the?!! How much does that come up to? Not even P3.50 with the 50% mark down. Why did they do that?

Greedy bastards.