If you need staples, you can go to Marty’s local Walmart. There, confusing economic forces have come together to make staples cost twice as much if you buy them in a larger box. No, really: when you buy three boxes containing five thousand staples each, the total cost is half as much as one box with fifteen thousand staples. And it’s not like the box is anything special.

“15,000 staples cost $5.44 and 5000 are $0.94,” Marty calculates, “so if you bought 3 of the small it would be just $2.82, a savings of $2.62.”

Strange. That’s the kind of math we’re used to seeing at Target.

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