Are you being stiffed?

Nope. But maybe I should. Who knows, perhaps I am being cheated and don't know it. Thanks for bringing up that point.

@uptowngirl My corner bodega has done that, though I think it was an accident. The guy who works in the mornings just charged me more for stuff than the guys who work in the evening. I said something about it, and I guess they told the morning guy that he was charging the wrong prices. I think the problem - at my bodega, at least, was the lack of price tags on items.

@BroadwayBK This particular Morton Williams often has stuff which dont have price tags and you dont know how much they cost until you take them to the till where sometimes you get sticker shock but I havent yet told a cashier to put the offending item aside.

There's one grocery store in my neighborhood where certain items will be absurdly expensive--why does cream cheese need to cost $6?--but I'm guessing they jack up the prices as a matter of store policy and such things are not errors. Nowhere else in this city would I expect to pay that much for simple items except maybe at Dean & Deluca, which will show a 100% mark up on a box of crackers that I can get in any old grocery store at a reasonable price.

@uptowngirl What! I would totally demand an explanation for the offending items before requesting they be taken off the tab.

I have to go way outside of my neighborhood to get my hands on any gourmet groceries, so you can bet I'm not paying an arm and a leg for what they sell around the way.

@BroadwayBK I still fondly remember that pear that cost me $2 at Dean & Deluca, all because I had such a craving that day and happened to be in SoHo.

@Uraniumfish You paid $2 for a pear!!! then I dont feel that bad that I paid $1.50 for a pink lady apple at Fairway.. outrageous isnt it?

Two dollars for a pear! How delicious. Then again my local non-posh grocery seems to charge whatever he feels like - no price tags and the price changes from day to day...

Yeah, they were priced by weight and my little pear came out to that much according to D&D prices. I told the cashier, "Is it made of gold?" but paid for it anyway because I figured I had learned my lesson.

Didn't we talk about this $2 pear previously? Ha, ha. I hate when you get to the register and find out that you don't want to pay that much for something.

@BroadwayBK We did. This little pear is in the annals now.

My grocer often gives me an "I feel like it" discount in NYC - which is odd because I'm convinced he's overcharging me, then discounting me, to give me the normal amount but so that I feel like I got a great deal!

@Ajadedidealist: Sometimes I wonder if stores do that on purpose.

Who knows, @hhusted? I don't think it's malevolent - just a mental "it's all up here" system. I'm inclined to be trusting of the guy, if only because I've known him for almost twenty years. One gets to know one's neighbors in this system...