Dear Prudence,
My sister is expecting triplets so I have been stockpiling as many diapers as I can when I find them discounted. My local grocery store marks them down several times a month but it is done randomly. Employees are not allowed to buy them or hold discounted items while they are on the clock. There is a serious threat of termination. An employee told me this. She was pregnant and wished she would buy a lot like I did. I offered to buy and hold them for her. I work right across the street and she could just pay me back wholesale.
I ended up buying a lot of the discounted diapers and put them in my SUV. We exchanged numbers and met up for the exchange. Since then, she and another employee will text me when the discounted diapers happen. I will take an early or late lunch to go to the grocery store and buy up the lot.
We met up later and they took their pick and paid me in cash. The situation has been so successful, you can barely get to the bed in my guest room because the diaper boxes are piled so high. One of my co-workers noticed my SUV always had the diaper boxes piled up and wished she knew my secret because she has a toddler and can never find diapers discounted. I told her I had a secret weapon where an employee texted me when they were discounted and then I would go buy them. I offered her the deal where she could take what diapers she needed and just pay me back the sale price. I probably have a dozen toddler-size diapers stowed away for my sister.
Instead, my co-worker got very angry with me. She accused me of “stealing” and being “greedy.” It wasn’t fair to “everyone else” that I always bought discounted items. She threatened to “find out” the employees’ names and make a formal complaint to the grocery store.
I got frightened and ran to the bathroom. I immediately changed the names of the employees to fake ones on my phone and changed the location of where we met up. And I bought a tarp for the back of my SUV. Later, my co-worker apologized for coming on “too harsh” and wanted in on my “special” deal. I bribed her with a few free boxes of diapers. Then I lied off my ass about more discounts. She backed off but my paranoia is high.
I don’t want to cost anyone their job. I thought it was a win-win situation. I am paying for the products, not making money off them, and whatever my sister didn’t use would be given away for free. I am also spending hundreds of dollars on her sake.
—Diaper Dilemma