The Supermarket Sausage Mystery (That My Oxbridge-Bound Kid Solved in Seconds)

[HelloandThankU]

The other day in the supermarket, I spotted something bizarre: a 12-pack and an 8-pack of the exact same sausages, both priced identical. Naturally, you’d grab the 12-pack, right? Everyone else was doing just that. I kept wondering why on earth they’d cost the same, and felt a bit sorry for the 8-packs just sitting there going to waste.

But when I got home and mentioned it, my youngest—who is currently being encouraged to apply for Oxford and Cambridge next year—solved my sausage mystery in a matter of seconds. Am I just being a bit thick?

It's not even a brag, more like an anti-brag

On a scale of thickness from thinnest to thickest, there’s the chipolatas, the sausages and then there’s OP.

Almost every supermarket sells sausages in packs of 8 and chipolatas in a 12 next to them and quite often they are under the same mix and match offer.
I would have thought every one would understand the difference.
How do you usually cope with the food shop? Do you go alone?

So true! The AI “voice” is insufferable! If you’ve got something to say, say it yourself!

My 7yo could figure that out. Maybe she'll go to oxbridge early

I think anyone could work this out, not sure you need to be headed to Oxbridge !

LOL. Love it.

Even from your photograph, it took me a couple of seconds to notice that these are completely different products.
I went to a redbrick university 😊

.... she didn't seem to notice, even though they're clearly labelled...

It’s so obvious that it makes me wonder if you wrote this post simply to announce that your child is being encouraged to apply to Oxbridge. Btw, you can’t apply to both for an undergrad degree, so it should read Oxford OR Cambridge. You need to work on your bragging…

I thought the Oxbridge bound child bit was a joke - the OP is aware now that the two packets aren't the same, not having read them properly. She just didn't at the time and was suggesting her child must be hugely intelligent because he (and most of us) quickly saw what she missed.

Imagine announcing to MN that your grasp of food labelling is still so poor by the time you have a child old enough to be approaching university age.

@HelloandThankU Here's a tip that will change your life, OP.

When comparing products, don't look at the price of the packet - look at the price by weight that's shown in small writing underneath. E.g, 67p per 100g vs 75p per 100g.

Sainsbury's 'Taste the difference' thick sausages are double the weight of the chipolata ones. They come in 6/12 packs, and unless on offer are the same price. Most adults can easily eat three thick sausages, but most wouldn't have six of the smaller ones so buying the chipolatas usually works out better value for money.

A) Your kid isn’t Oxbridge bound. They haven’t even applied yet, never mind received an offer.
B) One cannot apply to both Oxford and Cambridge in the same UCAS cycle for undergraduate study.
C) This isn’t exactly Flight 370 levels of mystery.

🤣

I think OP might have been speaking in jest!

Yes, it's always displayed, so you do know exactly what you're buying. Well, most people do.

Well yeah it clearly says chipolata which is half the size usually. They are probably the same weight.

This is the kind of shit that makes me love MN.

We haven’t had the drip feed yet … said Oxbridge candidate will still be at primary school, hence the genius levels of sausage spotting.

To be fair, the post says Oxbridge bound. We all know that Oxbridge isn’t a place and that you don’t apply to anywhere called Oxbridge. Thus we know that the child isn’t literally Oxbridge bound.

There’s what’s written but there’s also drawing meaning from what’s written. The infant is not even applying until next year. If a parent says they’ve been told their child is Oxbridge material we know perfectly well what that means. Only the most tediously small minded would correct the proud parent and say “Oh but you can’t.. etc. etc.”

Ir means the children knows their sausages from their chipolatas.

One woman even nabbed three packets of them

I doubt she was thinking they were better value than the full sized sausages, she just probably had kids who liked chipolatas. They cook faster too.

OP also needs to run all her posts through an LLM so I'm not really shocked

do you not know what a chipolata is? You don’t need to be Oxford bound to solve this completely non issue, package size, thinness of sausage - read package! Not wonder why his country has so much personal debt if people can’t read packets to budget