I’ll cash in a few empty cans and bottles in those redemption machines at local supermarkets. But I never carry over bags filled 6 feet high or shopping carts filled with broken, dented, filthy, smelly glass and plastic bottles and cans. Working as a merchandiser in local supermarkets, I see some people, usually the same people, redeeming these items every day. I’ve read they are supposed to be limited to 240 cans or bottles per day but they well exceed that limit, which the stores don’t enforce.

I realize it’s a way of life for some people I see going through public and private garbage cans fishing for every nickel item they can find. Aside from the fact some people stuff odd brands and crushed items into the machines, often breaking or jamming them, what I find sickening and disgusting is to see people putting their mouths on a deflated bottle that they just fished out of a garbage can and trying to blow it up so they can redeem it.

The beer, soda and juice liquids left in shopping carts and in the machines is bad enough, but while I can feel sorry that people apparently need this redemption money to survive, I find many get hostile and won’t stop stuffing the machines for a few seconds to allow me to cash in a handful of items. There’s got to be a better way.

My wife sent me to our local Shoprite supermarket advertising a sale on the Bumblebee tuna fish cans. This is for the solid white albacore tuna in either water or oil. Now this solid white we both find superior to the chunk light of the same company or competing brands like Starkist or Chicken of the Sea. So...this deal was that you needed to buy five cans but you need to use these digital coupons which I always have trouble sending to my phone. Even though I never changed anything when I started this digital account,

I usually get told I have the wrong user name or password and I have to set up a new digital account answering questions like my 1st pet's name or grandmother's maiden name and then I'm often told it's wrong. I don't consider my first gold fish a pet and I've never varied from supplying Rex to my first pet's answer. Do these experts at Bumblebee know better than me or did they know of another name my grandmother used.

? It's so frustrating. But as far as the sale. I was finally able to furnish the info to satisfy these ridiculous computer questions. The deal for the tuna cans is if you buy 2 cans, you get the third at half price of the 4th can which is a third of the price of the 5th can which is two thirds the price of the 4th can. Using my algebra skills and some trigonometry logarithms, I was able to deduce the exact amount of money we were saving by buying five cans. There's a similar deal if you buy 5 bags of Utz potato chips and you can even mix flavors. These phenomenal Shoprite deals never cease to amaze me.