All You Need to Know About Bargaining

Steven B. Zwickel 

August 30, 2026

"A bargain is something you have to find a use for once you have bought it." 

~ Benjamin Franklin

“Well, sir, I think this is going to work out for you folks. Let’s see here. We’re looking at a 2026 Chrysler Lanechanger sedan in Ticketmagnet Red with the exclusive all-Gizmo upgrade package. You seem like a nice couple, so I’m going to throw in the floor mats and give you a special price… Hmmm, I’d like to let you have it for that, but let me check with my manager to make sure I can let you have it for such a low price.”

Of course, the manager agrees to the “special price” and the buyers feel like they did some hard bargaining and got a real deal.

Americans are not good at bargaining. They don’t like haggling and are more comfortable paying whatever the seller asks. In fact, Americans find bargaining distasteful.

➤➤ NOTE: bargaining is when buyer and seller discuss how much something will cost while bartering is a swap—something is traded for something else.

In many other parts of the world, people bargain all the time and consider it a normal way of doing business. In America, everyone deals, but not everyone realizes this. When I took some coins to a dealer, hoping to sell them for cash, I was offered something like $180. I waited a while and stared at the coins until the dealer spoke. “How much were you hoping to get?” he asked. I did some math in my head and told him I thought they were worth more, probably closer to $250. He looked at the coins again, offered me $225, and we closed the deal.

The first rule of bargaining is that the buyer should not accept the first price named by the seller. A  buyer who is serious should consider that merely an opening move and make a counter-offer. 

Always make a counter-offer. Of course if the seller jumps at the counter-offer, the buyer has offered too much. Then the buyer has to decide whether to go ahead with the sale or look for a different item and start bargaining all over again.

The second rule is that the buyer should not rush. The longer bargaining goes on, the more likely the seller is to lower the price. 

➤➤ One skill that is very helpful when bargaining is the ability to do math in one’s head. A buyer who can do math without having to write down the numbers or use a calculator can make a good deal very quickly.

If a seller refuses to budge, the buyer has several options. 

One option is to walk away and shop someplace else. (There are sellers who won’t take no for an answer. My wife was once cornered by a salesman who insisted she buy an overpriced rug. I had to go from assertive to aggressive to help her escape.)

Another option  is to ask about a different but similar item—how it compares in quality and price. Take your time studying the alternative and then say something about how you would much prefer to buy the first item, if only it weren’t so expensive. That may be enough to get the seller to offer a better price on the first item. 

Finding “flaws” can also give a buyer an advantage. These don’t need to be real flaws, but they can be any aspect of the item for sale that is less than, or different from what the buyer desires. The buyer may frown and mention that the item in question is not quite what they wanted. Perhaps it is the wrong color, shape, model number, size, or anything. A lucky seller will pull out another one that is perfect. But it is also possible that, since the item in question is not quite right, the seller will agree to a lower price.

Yet another tactic is to “walk away slow”—smile and turn away, taking your time to leave. A seller who feels that he or she is about to lose a sale may be encouraged to call you back with a better offer. For example, we were in Spain and needed to buy new batteries for our camera. My granddaughter and I found a vendor not far from our hotel. I asked about getting batteries, and he told me the price. It was well above what I thought I should pay, so I thanked him and turned to walk away. "Why didn't you buy the batteries?" my granddaughter wanted to know. I turned to her and whispered, "Shhh! Just walk away slow." She looked puzzled, but we started back towards the hotel, walking very slowly. We had only taken a few steps when I heard the vendor call out, "Señor, I can give you a better price."  And he did.

A buyer might also try asking about the price for multiple items. If the seller believes a buyer might buy several of something, the price for each item may go down. It’s up to the buyer to decide if having more than one item is useful. This is what I did while eating in a restaurant in Morocco, where I noticed that the kebabs were served on interesting-looking, hand-forged, iron skewers. My wife and granddaughter agreed that a skewer would make a nice souvenir of our trip, so I asked the waiter if I could buy one. He asked the manager, who offered to sell me one and named a price. "What if I buy all six, how much would you want then?" I asked. By buying six, I got a much, much better price per skewer. 

When making an offer, the first price the seller asks should be considered the most the seller expects to get. At the same time, the first price the buyer offers should be considered the least the buyer is willing to pay. One morning I was in a store in China looking for a pair of small speakers for a friend’s computer. I found some that looked like the ones he wanted and noted the price. A helpful clerk came over and asked if I had any questions. I told him I was hoping to buy two speakers, and I (foolishly) told him how much I thought it would cost. His face lit up. With a big grin, he told me that the price I named was just fine. He was too quick. It was clear to me that I had offered too much. I thanked him and I muttered some nonsense about needing decibels as I walked away. That afternoon I bought the speakers in a different store for a lot less than I had offered in the morning.

Another bargaining tactic is to offer to “split the difference” between what the buyer wants to spend and what the seller is asking.

Never, ever start bargaining by naming your price. I saw an American woman walk into a jewelry shop in Italy and ask the clerk for something “around $100.” You can be sure that, whatever item he showed her, it didn't cost $100 before she asked. The lesson: never tell the seller what your budget really is. It’s OK to hint at your price range or to talk about your limitations. (I once got a great deal on an item after I explained that I would like to buy it but it would be very expensive to ship it home. The seller offered to pay for shipping!)

Finally, don’t underestimate a seller’s desire to make a deal. Anyone who has worked in retail sales will tell you that, near the end of the day, they would be happy to accept just about any offer if it enabled them to finish their shift and go home. I had a garage sale a few years ago, where I was trying to get rid of many items that were no longer of use to me. After hours of sitting in the driveway and making one sale at a time, I was thrilled when a woman came over and asked me, “How much for all this stuff?” pointing at the remaining items. I did some quick math (in my head) and calculated how much it would cost if I added up all the items. I told her, but then I offered to sell it all to her for about ¾ of that. She agreed, and ten minutes later my driveway was empty and I was relaxing because I was done for the day. I could have driven a harder bargain, but it was worth it to me to shut down the sale.

Theater Programs are No Longer Interesting

 Theater Programs are No Longer Interesting

Steven B. Zwickel

July 27, 2026

I Used to Love Theater Programs

My parents, especially my mother, were avid fans of the performing arts. They believed that it was important for their children to be exposed to these from an early age. As with our choices of food and drink, we weren’t expected to like everything, but they insisted we try out new things. 

I grew up in New York City and my parents were avid theater-goers, so I started attending shows on Broadway when I was really quite young (my sister and I have the dubious distinction of being among the youngest audience members ever kicked out of The King and I—I was 4, she was 3—we knew all the songs and sang along!)

And so, from the time we were quite little,  my sister and I were taken to see musicals, shows, concerts, operas, and ballets. By the time I was a teenager, I was in love with the theater. {Concerts and operas also appealed to me, but ballet never interested me.}

One of my favorite souvenirs from many of my trips to the theater were Playbills, and I kept collecting these as I grew up and eventually moved from New York to Wisconsin. {Playbill is the brand name of a free program given to audience members in New York and some other American theaters <https://playbill.com/>}

1973 "El Grande de Coca-Cola" Off-Broadway comedy set in Honduras.
Jeff Goldblum was part of the cast

1976-78 "Sly Fox" by Larry Gelbart with George C. Scott
Based on Ben Jonson's 1606 play "Vulpine" 

I began collecting memorabilia, particularly theater programs, but also original cast recordings (at first 78 rpm records, then cassette tapes, then CDs). My collection grew over time until several large boxes were taking over our basement. I  had a collection of some 300–400 theater and concert programs—some from Broadway, some from the London stage, some from Chicago, and many from Wisconsin. Among the cast lists are some of big names in modern-day theater (a few from before they went on to become big stars—you would recognize them immediately).

In July, 2021 I contacted the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research <https://wcftr.commarts.wisc.edu/> about making a donation to the Archive Playbill Collection. I explained that I had theater programs and Playbills from theater productions and concerts done in New York City, London, Chicago, and Wisconsin dating from approximately 1960 to 2020. I also had programs for the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Madison Chamber Orchestra, Madison Theater Guild, Forward Theater Company, Madison Ballet, CTM (Children’s Theater of Madison), and Madison Opera. 

1983 "The Mikado" Madison Savoyards' production
cover design by Sarah White

In addition, I offered to donate a lobby poster, London cast recording LP, movie script, and the Philadelphia tryout program and ticket stubs for the musical My Fair Lady. I also had programs and audio cassette recordings from 1977-1986 productions of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas by the Madison Savoyards, audio cassettes of cast recordings of various musical and opera productions, and 35 years’ worth of programs and one poster from American Players Theater in Spring Green, Wisconsin <https://americanplayers.org/> (Winner of a Tony Award in 2026!).

 

1956 "My Fair Lady" program from the Philadelphia tryout run 

The star of my collection was the program and ticket stubs from the 3rd night of a month-long Philadelphia tryout run of My Fair Lady at the Erlanger Theater on Feb. 18, 1956. These items are extremely rare and I never found anyone who had anything like them. (Eliza sings a song called “I Want to Dance All Night”—thank goodness they changed that lyric!). In Act I, Scene 9 the song “Say a Prayer” was cut from the show but Lerner and Loewe used it in the 1958 musical film Gigi. 

The program and tickets (and the Erlanger Theater ticket envelope) were given to me by a woman who was there that night, so I can authenticate them. I thought maybe a real musical theater buff or Julie Andrews fan would probably pay a lot for them. As it turned out, the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research took the entire collection for its archives.

Why I No Longer Like Theater Programs

Over the past few years I have come to dislike printed theater programs and I no longer collect them. Here’s why:

➽ Too many pages in modern-day programs are devoted to “our wonderful sponsors”. It must appeal to the vanity of those who can afford to donate $25,000+, but it comes across as boasting and bragging about how rich they are. Don’t they know that the highest form of charity is that which is given anonymously? {OK, according to Maimonides <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzedakah> complete anonymity, where neither party knows the other, is the second-highest form.}

I understand the reason for listing all of “our wonderful sponsors”—it’s supposed to encourage other rich people to become wonderful by donating. But it’s annoying to those of us who just want to know more about the play we are about to see.

➽ Director’s Notes used to tell us a bit more about the show, its origins, and perhaps some insight into its meaning. Nowadays, it seems they think it’s important to tell the un-amazing story of how the director came across this “obscure” play (often after it won tons of awards abroad) and how incredible and insightful it is, even if it is hundreds of years old and “a play about nothing.” Most importantly, we are told that this play is RELEVANT to the way we live TODAY!

➽ Once upon a time, it was interesting to read a little bit about the performers’ backgrounds, just to help us remember where we might have seen them before and to note their credentials. Now we get a complete resumé, alongside a heavily edited headshot, of every actor and everyone else who may have had anything to do with the show. Are there really people who want to know that the Assistant to the Prodcution Assistant to the Touring Company Co-Stage Manager worked on “Our Town” in Kalamazoo? 

I also note an alarming growth in the list of organizations, and people (including headshots and bios) listed as producers. 

And, of course, many entries finish with either #  or @ so we can “like” and “friend” them on social media, or with a shout out to someone “ who always believed in me.” I believe I will turn the page.

➽ I do not have a PhD in Advanced Music Theory, so I am completely lost when the program notes for a concert contain an extensive vocabulary, usually in Italian (occasionally in another European language), explaining the music that will be played. 

“The third alesatura movement, features an uccisore ensemble reflecting the peasants’ march into combat with the giant grasshoppers, followed by a mordant credenza motif in C-flat spazzatura calderossa, typical of the composer’s devotion to cestino oblongatto.” This kind of thing does not make me allegro.

Of course I will continue to be part of the audience at many concerts, plays, and shows. I still enjoy a great night watching and listening to professional entertainment. But the programs they give out will go back into the rack for re-use when the curtain comes down. I won’t be saving them any longer.

I Used to Be a Movie Lover

Steven B. Zwickel 

July 6, 2026

 I used to be a real movie lover. Not any more.

A few weeks ago, I found a bunch of my old yearly planners and started browsing through them. Among the dental appointments (not enough, I now realize) and the job interviews (far too many), were the names of movies I’d gone to see. Year after year,, I’d gone to a movie theater 2 or 3 times or more almost every month. 

Sad to say, as I write this, it has now been almost 3 years since I last went out to see a movie, and I really hated the picture. 

What happened? I got older, of course, and I am no longer part of the target audience movie producers crave. But I think it goes beyond that; the movies have changed from artistic adventures to marketable consumer goods.

I’m a Baby Boomer and grew up at a time when movies were only available on the big screen at a theater. We had a black and white set, but the studios prevented movies from being shown on television until the middle of the 1950s. One of the very first times movies were shown on TV was “Million Dollar Movie” on WOR-TV (Channel 9 in New York), which showed the same movie twice every evening. While it was sometimes a struggle to get permission to watch TV on a school night {OF COURSE I’ll do all my homework first, momma!}, whenever we could, my sister and I would devour these films. We watched, sometimes twice in one night. 

Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire in "Swing Time"

Eventually we had memorized all the songs in the Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers musicals like Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), The Gay Divorcee (1934), Shall We Dance (1937). I would argue that “The Way You Look Tonight” from the 1936 film Swing Time is one of the greatest songs ever written (Alas,  I wish I could still hit those high notes!).

So I grew up to become a lover of movies and I think I must have seen hundreds. In Brooklyn we lived near a theater where you could watch two movies for a dollar and when I moved to Wisconsin I was lucky enough to live in a town with a one dollar theater.

Some time in the early 1980s we started renting movies on VHS tapes and watching them at home. These do not show up in any of my planners, but I know we did this, especially at holiday time, when we rented “family” movies. The VHS cassettes eventually gave way to DVDs, which we would play on my home computer before we got a DVD player. 

We survived the Covid pandemic by borrowing free DVDs from the public library. I will always be grateful to the library for helping us stay sane in a crazy time.

But then something changed. After the pandemic, even though it was safe to go to the movie theaters, I couldn’t find a reason to go. I studied the names, actors, and plot summaries of the new movies, but nothing appealed to me. 

Prequels or sequels, which seem to dominate the new releases, don’t interest me. You can learn more about the worst sequels (Jaws. The Karate Kid. Speed. Paul Blart: Mall Cop, etc.) at <​​https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/worst-sequels-of-all-time/> Somebody ought to put up a big sign in Hollywood, “If you don’t have a new idea, don’t make a movie.”

As if I needed another reason not to go see a movie in the theater, a  few months ago [Apr 27, 2026] the Wall Street Journal ran this headline, “The $50 Movie Ticket Has Arrived.” 

I put together a list of the types of movies I am not interested in watching and realized that it pretty much eliminated everything playing in the theaters.

I am not interested in:

🎥 Rom-coms: I’ve found my true love and have no interest in watching mis-matched couples battle for 2 hours on screen. If you ask me, none can compete with “Bringing Up Baby.”

🎥 Coming-of-age: They can’t pay me enough to watch awkward teens dealing with adolescence. Immaturity is not entertaining.

🎥 Coming out: People who  are not happy with the way they are can and should try something else to see if that is any better. I feel for them, really I do, but not enough to sit through hours watching other people’s internal struggles over sexual orientation.

🎥 Comic book movies: I was discouraged from reading comics when I was a kid and never developed a taste for them. If there really are super-heros, where the hell have they been all these years?  If I had super powers, I’d send all the re-makes, sequels, and spin-offs of these movies to a distant galaxy.

🎥 One-man army: It was fun, at first, to watch Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Liam Neeson, and Steven Seagal take on the bad guys. But, like the action figures people used to buy for boys {“They are NOT dolls!!!”} they are one-trick ponies. James (Sean Connery) Bond was different, because he had a sense of humor, but even he got stale and repetitive. The Bond movies became circus acrobat performances with fancy guns—the improvised weapons used to be amusing, but even those became clichés.

🎥 Pseudo-history: take any episode in history and jazz it up with modern-day sensibility (preferably by adding sex—straight, bi-, whatever), add loud, dramatic orchestral music (preferably loud enough to drown out the mundane dialog) and you have an “important”  movie. Wake me when it’s over. The old “swords and sandals” epics are still fun to watch and you can laugh at the stilted acting and oodles of ketchup that pour out of every wound.

🎥 Sci-Fi and Horror movies: Oh no! Don’t open that door/hatch! If you hear spooky music, well…..

🎥 Disney princesses, etc.: I am not, and have never been, the target audience for these films. I miss the days when Disney was subversive, with TV shows and movies about rebels and anti-heroes who weren’t afraid to take on the system. I remember Davy Crockett (Fess Parker), Zorro / Don Diego de la Vega (Guy Williams), Daniel Boone (Dewey Martin), and The Swamp Fox/Francis Marion (Leslie Nielsen). Disney also made shows about “The Magnificent Rebel” Ludwig van Beethoven, Scottish cattle thief Rob Roy, and English outlaw Robin Hood. Is it any wonder that the Baby Boomers became anti-establishment rebels?

🎥 Bio-pics: These re-work a pop culture icon into a great hero, who overcame (or failed to overcome) one or more of the following: poverty, child abuse, sexual abuse, drug abuse, alcoholism, a physical disability, harsh criticism, losing everything to a con man, wartime trauma, racial/ethnic/religious stigma and discrimination and make a movie about a modern-day hero. Maybe some people like knowing others had it worse off than they do. I’m not cold-hearted, but these kinds of stories don't interest me.

🎥 Redemption/Quest: An ex-con/ex-sheriff/ex-cop is trying to atone for some evil deed he did in the past and agrees to help a tough woman/disabled man/lost child find out what happened to her/his family, meeting a band of truly terrifying killers and killing a lot of people along the way. The ex-whatever is hoping that, by helping with the quest, he will be redeemed. There may be sexual tension between the ex-whatever and the person he’s trying to help, but who cares? 

If you add a bit of obsession, this category  includes the “Sane-guy-going Crazy” plot where the audience is treated to watching someone go bonkers for two hours. What fun!

🎥 Smart kids/stupid grownups: Long before their idiot parents realize it, their brilliant children know that their folks were meant for each other. Sometimes the kids plot against the adults, sometimes they plot to bring them together. So cute! I could gag.

We have a streaming service, and can find Pizzaflix on YouTube, so we have loads of really good old movies we can watch that we haven’t seen before. (By old I mean from before 1930.) 

They’re mostly in black and white and they rock (most of them; some are stinkers, I admit.) But they are entertaining and there is no one sitting behind me commenting—in a loud, annoying voice—offering uninformed opinions about every scene, actor, costume, and song.

         All of which leaves me with exactly no reason to go out to the movies. 

True Myths

Steven B. Zwickel 

June 30, 2026

If you’ve been conscious for a few years or spent time online at all, you have already been told that: 

a) whatever you do, you’ve been doing it all wrong, and 

b) most of what you think you know is completely wrong. 

Here is my contribution to misinformation. Feel free to share—after all, it was on the internet, so it must be true.

Defending the Border, the Natural Way!

Because landmines are illegal under international treaties, North Korea planted thousands of acres of poison ivy along the border. 

Math nerds got the beat!

Algorithms were invented in Algeria as a way to help dancers keep time.

Bikes are the pits!

Bicycle riding can damage the axilla nerves in your armpits. Every time you press down on the pedals, you strain these fragile nerves, which doctors believe can lead to crippling olecranon and result in severe articulatio cubiti, for which there is no known cure. The best way to avoid this problem is to ride “no hands.”

It’ll give you the jitters!

The Jitterbug dance was named for a species of deadly pythonflies that wobble, or jitter, before they attack their prey with a fatal sting. Pythonflies are native to Putzi Island in the North Khazakh Sea and water park.

Ouija beats Gallup!

A study found that the Ouija board was far more accurate at predicting the winners of local and national elections than the so-called “Scientific” polls. The teenaged Weird sisters of Albumen, Nova Scotia, using a homemade planchette, were able to call the winners of 18 elections consecutively. University-sponsored political polls only succeeded in picking winners 43% of the time.

You think you have friends? Hah!

A scientific study showed that people who claim to have friends are actually delusional. Researchers at the University of Death Valley Corroborations Fallacy Department interviewed everyone they know and all the respondents said that they didn’t believe that they were friends—more like y'know acquaintances, or like random guys they knew from someplace, or like just to hook up. The researchers did a statistical analysis and discovered that 88% of the people who thought they might have friends did not hear or understand the question or live on one of the seven continents, leading to margin of error greater than the sample size.

Watch those Cukes!

Always store cucumbers vertically in the refrigerator. This will keep them from realizing that they are going to end up in a pickle.

Not P________ C_________!

It is illegal to refer to _______ people as ______ people in seven states: _______, _______, _______, _______, ________, ______, and _______. In one state, _________, self-censorship is a felony!

School Kids got it Right!

“Liar, liar, pants on fire” is based on the way people used to testify in court in olden times. A witness was asked to stand next to an open fireplace and, if he was lying, it was believed his breeches would catch fire, thus exposing him as a liar. The practice ended with the invention of the “pinky swear” which was much more reliable.

Berry Unlikely!

Dingleberries were small, brownish fruits that  grew on the Dingle Peninsula of Ireland. Their putrid taste led people to use the same term to describe a foolish person or the stuff that gets stuck to one’s underpants.

Don’t talk nonsense!

The first “babbling” brook was located in ancient Babylon, for which it is named. Later, after a heavy rain event, it became the “Rivers of Babylon”. Using the word babble to mean talking nonsense did not become common until the invention of school boards.

Stay on your best behavior!

Rowdiness was not always considered rude or bad behavior. Algernon Michael Rowdy was a popular entertainer in the 16th Century, until one night he gotteth y- drunk and toreth up ye tavern in Derbytown. After that, rowdy became an epithet for a person who was out of control.

Stay Safe!

Automotive experts recommend the best way to test the airbags in your car is to try driving straight into oncoming traffic.

Chopper rides can cure you!

The best way to stop hiccups is to take a ride in a helicopter. The faster the helicopter rises, the faster the hiccups will stop. An elevator also can help. No one knows why this works, but it does!

Great Scot!

Bagpipes do not cause psychosis, according to a study by the National University of Scotland. Researchers found that most people—over 70%— are able to stay sane listening to “The Campbells are Coming.” However, the sight of a sporran led to paroxym in more than a third of those tested.

Quit yer bellyachin’, sailor!

The Yiddish word “kvetch” for a person who complains a lot originally applied to a type of small sailboat. Eastern Europeans used a double-ended boat to transport goods on rivers. These “yawls” were called ketches and they were hard to manage, so the sailors would complain in loud, vulgar (not the same as Volga, the river) language. Locals referred to this as kvetching.

If you have been putting your left shoe on first, you are endangering your life!

Always put your right shoe on before the left. Left feet are always larger than right, and squeezing your foot into a left shoe can force the arteries in your leg to contract, which is bad for your heart. Starting with the right shoe gives your circulatory system time to adjust.

Geologists find source of Quakes!

Terrorist groups are responsible for an increase in earthquakes, researchers found. The terrorists are known to jump up and down while screaming slogans. It is believed that this repetitive motion causes tremors in the earth’s mantle, which is primarily composed of silicate minerals rich in magnesium, iron, and calcium (such as olivine and pyroxene). Silicate responds with violent shaking and cracking of the surface—believed to be the origin of “Silicon” valley. The tremors slow down and stop when the terrorists get tired of jumping.

Think Artificial Intelligence is “artificial”? Think again!

If you’ve been fooled into believing that computers are behind so-called artificial intelligence AI, you are not alone. A poll of Americans found that this is one of most commonly held myths these days. What the folks behind AI don’t want you to know is that they have been using simians to respond as AI Chatbots. Once scientists proved the "Infinite Monkey Theorem" (where 1,000 primates with keyboards replicated the works of Shakespeare) it was a simple step to using them to answer users’ dumb questions online. Look at any FAQ page and see for yourself!

Don’t eat these if you don’t want to get pregnant!

Scarfing down buttery crescent-shaped rolls with jam for breakfast may land you in a real jam! These pastries came from Mesopotamia and were once called “Fertile” Crescent Rolls because eating them resulted in so many pregnancies. Better to switch to a mulch-based hot cereal.

There’s more to it than just brushing!

If you brush your teeth regularly, that’s a good thing, but it’s only half of what you should be doing for good dental health. Dentists recommend that, in addition to brushing, you spend time combing your teeth. Regular combing will make sure each tooth is straight up and down and you’ll avoid nasty “dent-riff”, the oral equivalent of dandruff in your hair.

And remember, if you read it online, it is absolutely, 100%, guaranteed to be true. Or not.