What Accountants do in the Grocery Store...

Having told you one of the mental games I play while waiting for the bus, I'll tell you about another I play in the grocery store. Since I like to put my accounting skills to good use outside of work, I usually calculate how much my grocery bill will come to before getting cashed out.

There's two versions of this game. One is to add the items while picking them up, and keep a mental tally. The second, and more challenging, is to add them up at the cash, while putting them on the conveyer belt.

The goal of the game is to come within a dollar of the actual total. One of the things that makes this game difficult is the lack of tax on some 'essential' items. I'm generally not good at knowing what items are deemed 'essential', but do know the items that have 13% tax (chips, cookies, anything sweet or with lots of sugar).

How successful am I at the game? I guess within a dollar about 50% of the time. Once the taxes are harmonized, I'll be able to increase that to two thirds of the time within a dollar.

There you go, you're a little closer to figuring out the strange stuff that makes me tick ;-)