There was a sale on The Citizen Monday.

And it was my fault.

A cashier at Wegmans was called “a dumb Polack.”

And it was my fault.

Let me explain.

While “tweaking” the design of the front page of The Citizen this month, I unknowingly used an old template, one which had our old price (35 cents) listed in the upper right corner of the page.

And I never noticed it.

Many of you may not have noticed it Monday.

And for those who get home delivery, or those who buy it out of the racks, my mistake was irrelevant.

And even for many of those who buy their newspaper inside a store, the tiny little typo probably went unnoticed. After all, regular buyers of The Citizen know our paper costs 50 cents. There is no need to look.

But some people looked.

We heard from them.

And even a poor cashier heard from them. As she scanned the bar code of The Citizen at the register, it recorded 50 cents. But the man purchasing the paper pointed to my error in the masthead and demanded that he pay only the 35-cent price stated on the cover.

When she tried to explain that The Citizen costs 50 cents, and that it rang up as 50 cents, he got more frustrated, and called her “a dumb Polack.”

Immediately, you know the man had to be over 50, because that dusty old insult hasn't been tossed around since Archie Bunker, and the man should have his Wegmans Shoppers Gold Look At Me And My Savings Card revoked, because the checkout is an entirely inappropriate place for such language (This type of talk should remain in Canned Goods Aisle 7 where it belongs).

But it was my fault.

And it's not the first time I have “discounted” our paper.

About a year ago, when I was again “tweaking” our front page (as you by now have guessed, “tweaking” is a euphemism for “messing up”), I used the wrong bar code on the page (the bar code is that unattractive clump of lines all bunched together on the lower left side of The Citizen, invented so that cashiers wouldn't waste valuable time typing a ‘5' then a ‘0' and then the ‘cents' key on their registers).

Instead of using the Sunday bar code, which everyone knows is line-line-thicker line-space-line-thin line-line-line, I mistakenly used the daily bar code, which is thick line-thin line-space-line-line-thick line-line (I know, I know, how could I have messed that up?).

The end result is that our Sunday paper that day rang up on cash registers for our daily price of 50 cents. Thus, I had unwittingly created a special one-time only 66 percent off sale on The Citizen, one of those department store “Turn Back The Clock” sales with old-time prices reminiscent of when a gallon of gas was only $2.29 and people used the term “dumb Polack.”

What can you learn from all of this?

I am a friend of the budget-conscious newspaper buyer.

I am not a friend of our circulation department.

And so, in a plea deal worked out between our lawyers, I have promised our circulation folks that I will abstain from “tweaking” the paper in the future.

Oh, and we'll be selling this Monday's paper at 65 cents.

Editor Mikel LeFort can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 230 or e-mail mikel.lefort@lee.net