The cheapest item is the one you put back on the shelf.

Grandma was in a reasonably good mood today, which made spending three hours in the mall with her relatively painless.

All the muscles in her back have atrophied so she has a lot of difficulty sitting up straight. Over time she begins to lean to her right and hang out of her chair at an odd, uncomfortable looking angle that causes random strangers to shoot you dirty looks because somehow it is your fault.

It is hard to say whether our efforts to shift her upright help or not. Though well-meaning, it seems to just make her more uncomfortable and sore. So she spent most of the time pitched over like she was drunk, and it just so happened that this and her driving style ran her head into collisions with the purses of innocent women who happened to be in the way.

As far as a shopping trip went though, it was reasonably successful. Grandma never approaches these things with any ideas as to what exactly she wants to get, so mostly you have to suggest things. There is a certain art to making the right suggestions that I think we did well today.

At one point in time she decided she wanted some perfume and glommed on to a box of Shania Twain fragrances. "Do you think this would be cheaper?" she asked, and I suggested that we go find out what it smelled like first. "But is it cheaper?" We found her a tester and decided that we didn't really like the smell. Regardless, it took a while before we could convince her that it would be cheaper still just to put it back on the shelf.

So sorry, Shania.