The night before any holiday where greeting cards are involved, I wind up at the stationery store. My goal is always to spend $1.99 (plus tax). But since I don’t carry that kind of cash, I have to whip out the plastic. And whipping out the plastic means I must also grab an extravagant bow, holiday-appropriate candy corn, and a stuffed Mr. T rear-view mirror accessory.

The purchase of these ridiculous items is dictated by a sign taped to the register. Scrawled in green marker on notebook paper with maddeningly frayed edges, the sign says, “Minimum Credit Card Purchase $10.”

And according to Bottom Line Personal, a magazine I didn’t realize I received, that sign violates the terms and conditions imposed by Visa and MasterCard.

“Did you know that merchants who accept Visa and MasterCard cannot require a minimum purchase? If a merchant insists on a minimum purchase amount, contact your card issuer to complain.”

The Consumerist has the actual wording, from Visa:

“Always honor valid Visa cards, in your acceptance category, regardless of the dollar amount of the purchase. Imposing minimum or maximum purchase amounts is a violation.”

Now, your local merchants might argue that paying credit card fees on miniscule purchases eliminates their profit margins. And that sounds pretty reasonable. But my point is this — if you wind up a few dollars short of an arbitrary limit, and you’re the kind of person who argues about signs taped to cash registers, you won’t have to walk out with unwanted purchases.

Or you can just start carrying around more cash.  Anyone have any good/embarrassing stories of stuff you bought to reach a minimum purchase limit?

We’ve added yet another t-shirt to our quirky collection. And you can buy the new Alfred Nobel (He’s DY-NO-MITE!) shirt or any other mental_floss shirt at 10% off. Just use the discount code “shirt” when checking out.

I was visiting my folks in Philadelphia over Thanksgiving and noticed something odd: it seemed to me there were many more men walking the street than women. Now, I’m not usually the kind of OCD neurotic who keeps track of such ratios as they pass by (and if you are, this post is going to be extra-interesting for you), but it got me wondering: are there really more men in the city than women? I did some research and found out that there are, as you’d expect, actually more women than men. But I also discovered there are plenty of places in the country where that isn’t true; where men, in fact, outnumber women by an astounding number.

Here, then are the top ten towns (or should we call them Viking ships?) with populations over 2000 where men rule the land:

1. Baldwin, Illinois (94% men, Median age: 30.7, pop. 3627)
2. Irving, Illinois (90% men, Median age: 31.9, pop. 2484)
3. Ina, Illinois (90% men, Median age: 33.8, pop. 2455)
4. Altamont, Pennsylvania (87% men, Median age: 33.9, pop. 2689)
5. Carlisle, Indiana (86% men, Median age: 33.6, pop. 2660)
6. Clifton, Tennessee (85% men, Median age: 34.7, pop. 2699)
7. Dannemora, New York (84% men, Median age: 34.0, pop. 4129)
8. Jessup, Maryland (83% men, Median age: 34.3, pop. 7865)
9. Fort Dix, New Jersey (83% men, Median age: 33.5, pop. 7464)
10. Sheridan, Illinois (83% men, Median age: 30.6, pop. 2411)

The site is called city-data.com, and you can also put your zip code in their search engine and get a bunch of interesting stats for the town you live in, with graphs and such… very cool. Check it out, and check out all their other lists, like the Top 100 Cities with Shortest Commuting Times, or if you happen to be single, and live in one of the Viking ship cities, and are wondering why you can’t meet anyone, check out their Top 100 Cities with the Largest Percentage of Females.

You can keep telling yourself there are other fish in the sea (or lake, or whatever); but they’re probably not as big as this one. According to The Daily Mail, Carl Smith and Dave Jones landed a new European record when they caught this 8 ft long, 226 lb wels catfish in Spain. The beast took more than 90 minutes to reel in, and the pair has nicknamed the dead fish Jaws. Click here to read more. Link via TheCellar.

Everybody wants to be a winner, right? Even if the prize for winning stinks, being a loser stinks even more. But now, the competitive-spirited among us have a really compelling reason to avoid loser-dom: according to a recent study, winners live longer than losers, who die sooner. The study looked at Oscar-winners and two different kinds of Nobel prize-winners, and in every case, winners outstripped losers by several years. For instance:

• Life expentancy for Oscar-winners is 79.7 years, vs. 75.8 years for losers. That’s a 28% relative reduction in death rates, which is the statistical equivalent to curing all cancers in all people for all time. (This would seem to explain Clint Eastwood’s unstoppable career, at a time when most directors his age are calling it a day.)
• There were 235 Americans nominated for the Nobel prize in medicine between 1901 and 1949. Twenty-five won. The average age at death for the winners was 81. Average age at death for the losers was 77.
• For the Nobel Peace Prize, there were 68 American nominees from 1901 to 1951. A dozen won. Those winners died at an average age of 80. The losers died at 76. Removing those who died within 5 years of being nominated (mean interval for peace prize) the average age at death for the losers was 62.

If you’ve been wondering what could get your kids to wash their hands more often (incessant nagging aside), perhaps the lure of cash will do the trick. This holiday season Bits and Pieces is offering one of the stranger stocking stuffers I’ve seen: a pear-berry soap, where each bar feels like winning the lottery! Rolled up in each bar is either a $1, $5, $10, $20 or $50 dollar bill. Of course, you’ll have to do plenty of scrubbing up to get to the prize inside. Individual Money Bars cost $14.99, and are available here. Link via Popgadget.

There’s no contest this week, since it’s not really a week so much as three days. You can also gather from this that there will be no blogging on Thursday and Friday, as I personally plan to spend both days passed out on a tryptophan overdose. But check back next Monday for the opportunity to win free stuff!

Here’s everything you’ll need to impress Uncle Phil at the dinner table tomorrow, courtesy of infoplease:

• At one time, the turkey and the bald eagle were each considered as the national symbol of America. Benjamin Franklin was one of those who argued passionately on behalf of the turkey. Franklin felt the turkey, although “vain and silly”, was a better choice than the bald eagle, whom he felt was “a coward”.
• According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 45 million turkeys are cooked and eaten in the U.S. at Thanksgiving—that’s one sixth of all turkeys sold in the U.S. each year. American per capita consumption of turkeys has soared from 8.3 pounds in 1975 to 18.5 pounds last year. [Editor's note: Hellooooo, obesity epidemic.]
• Age is a determining factor in taste. Old, large males are preferable to young toms (males) as tom meat is stringy. The opposite is true for females: old hens are tougher birds.
• Turkeys are the only breed of poultry native to the Western Hemisphere.
• Turkeys have great hearing, but no external ears. They can also see in color, and have excellent visual acuity and a wide field of vision (about 270 degrees), which makes sneaking up on them difficult.
• Domesticated turkeys cannot fly. Wild turkeys, however, can fly for short distances at speeds up to 55 miles per hour. They can also reach speeds of 25 miles per hour on the ground.
• Turkeys sometimes spend the night in trees.

Also, almanac.com says the loose skin below a turkey’s chin is called a wattle, while the warts on the wattle are called the caruncles. Bon appetit!

I know I’m going a little overboard with the Amazing Animal Photos today, but check out these new pictures of an elephant in utero! These were taken at 6 and 12 months’ gestation; the bun stays in the oven for two years.

For those at the office today, tomorrow, or Friday, there’s sure to be a lot of down time… yAwn.

Here’s a fantastic way to kill some… especially if you were a Pac-Man freak like I was growing up. It’s called Pac-Mondrian and features both familiar sound bites from the original and a fun boogie-woogie score by legendary jazz pianist, Pete Johnson.

Make sure you have your volume turned up!