So I’m at the grocery store the other day, buying food and whatnot. My current job pays for squat, so I’m always on the lookout for bargains, sales, discounts, that sort of thing. Glance at the list and see we need some dryer sheets so our clothes will come out of the dryer softer or drier or something. Never fully understood what dryer sheets actually do. So I’m looking over the boxes and I see a 200-sheet box of Bounce dryer sheets with a large sticker on the front boldly proclaiming “11% More!” Eleven percent more? Kind of an odd upsize, I think. Not, say, twenty percent more or thirty-three percent? Isn’t that what they usually do? Still, a bargain’s a bargain and eleven percent more free is still more.

Then I take another look at the sticker. It doesn’t, technically, say that extra eleven percent is free. Looking at the tiny type under the gigantic “11% More” declaration, I read “than the 180-sheet size.” I do some quick math in my head and, yes, two hundred is roughly eleven percent more than one-eighty. But it’s for the same price, right? A glance at the prices shows that it’s not. The two hundred count box costs almost a dollar more than the one-eighty box.

So this is in no way a deal for the consumer. They’re advertising the simple mathematical fact that this box contains more than that box, hoping you’ll just assume that the prices are equal and buy an extra twenty sheets for about a nickel a sheet. Thanks but no thanks.

I bought a box of Snuggle brand dryer sheets instead. That little bear is creepy but, dammit, he’s honest.