Len noticed this sign at CVS. It seems pretty straightforward: the summer clearance items are all 50% off. Except for the fans. And the items that don’t scan at 50% off. The more you think about this sign, the more confusing it gets, because it means walking up to the counter or using a self-scan machine to determine whether items are on clearance sale. Why do you need a sign telling you to do that?

I was at my local CVS and stumbled across the summer clearance shelves. On them was the following sign (picture attached):

Select Summer Items 50% off
(excludes fans, only items that ring 50% off at register are included in this sale)

Yes, there were fans on the shelves. Also, ALL items on the shelves only had their original price tags on them with no indication of which ones would ring up as 50% off. So to find out if an item was on sale, you had to take it up to the register to have them check. Considering the efficiency of the local CVS in redacted, that would mean waiting in line for 5 minutes just to find out if that summer picnic item was marked down from 3.99 to 2.00.

Len is missing the obvious thing here: “The items that are 50% off are 50% off” is what the word “selcect” means.

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