Kristina stumbled onto a savvy con for those who need two turkeys but only want to pay for one: Buy a turkey, call with a sob story about accidentally ruining it, then show up at the store with hat in hand waiting for your free sympathy bird.

She cleverly disguises the ruse as an “innocent mistake:”

This year we have been bestowed the honor of holding Thanksgiving at our new house. Call it a blessing, or a curse, but it means that we get to keep the leftovers. Because of various events happening this week and next weekend, I decided to buy the turkey and most food for the event last Sunday. Since we couldn’t afford the hand fed, cage free, fancy local turkey that I wanted, we decided on the next best thing, a fresh brined turkey from Trader Joe’s. I was lucky to find the last 20 pounder in the case and grabbed it. I came home and stuck it in our fridge that we keep in the garage.

This morning, I went into the fridge to pull out items for my son’s lunch and discovered that everything in the fridge was warm, including the turkey. The fridge had gone out and we did not catch it for 2 days. Needless to say, I was not going to gable with warm turkey. We called Trader Joe’s to see if they had any 20 pounders left and explained why we needed 40 lbs. of turkey. They searched in the back and found one for us.

When we got to Trader Joe’s they had it already packaged and waiting for us up front. They explained that they felt bad for us and gave us the turkey at no charge. Please note that not once did we complain or ask for a discount, they did it out of kindness. And this is why I am now a Trader Joe’s customer for life!

All joking aside, bravo to Trader Joe’s for being so generous. The manager made an investment in customer loyalty that will surely pay off.

(Photo: power_piglet)

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