I hate coupons, and I think they hate me, too.
At every stage in their life cycle, they manage to wreak havoc with my life. It starts the moment they come into my home.
They slosh about on the dining room table, making it impossible to find any real mail — like bills — or anything good to read, like a Blank Slate newspaper.
I do my best to ignore them. But when I finally give in, that’s when the second level of harassment begins.
They nag: “How do you know your brand of dishwasher soap is the best if you’ve never even tried ours? Would it kill you?”
Next to them another one is yelling, “It’s a steal! So maybe you don’t need 15 shades of glitter eye shadow today — but someday, when I’m gone, you will, and for the rest of your life you’ll be kicking yourself!”
Worst of all is the guilt: “Some savvy shopper you are, refusing to save your family actual money for fear of the unknown — or is it just pure laziness?”
They’re so annoying, I usually leave them all home, but the damage is done.
Somehow, all I can see in the store are products whose coupons are on my kitchen counter. “Coulda saved a bundle!” they jeer at me, when I’m back home unloading the groceries I bought without them.
So the next time I give in, and tuck a few of the more persistent ones into my purse.
They have only begun to fight.
It was going to be a “Coupons Only” shopping spree. I had grabbed up as many of them as I could, stapled them to the shopping list, and headed for the store.
I got all the way to the checkout before I realized — I didn’t know where they were.
I became one of those people you dread being behind, tearing through my pockets, dumping my purse out on the conveyor belt, the laser beam trying to read my keys, my phone, my laxatives…. I was utterly unable to produce a single coupon … until, outside in the parking lot, I looked down and found they had all rematerialized…in my hand!
That humbled me.
There is one I remembered, once. I proudly plunked it down at the front of all my groceries, where the cashier couldn’t fail to see it — only to watch in disbelief as the conveyor belt started up and swallowed my coupon whole. “You can give me credit for that, can’t you?” Of course not.
In fact, the only coupon I ever used successfully was the one my 2-year-old plucked from one of those motorized dispensers that spit them out as you walk by. He was still waving it as we went through the check-out line, so the cashier took it from him and what do you know? It was for something in the cart!
But there was one final lesson yet to learn.
One evening, many years ago, I found myself on the loose in a fast-food parking lot, with half an hour to kill and the knowledge that, somewhere in my possession, I had a coupon for one free meal.
I strode smugly to the door — the right coupon at the right location, for once! I had only forgotten one little thing: the curb I was tripping over.
I went down like a ninepin, right between two police officers who were too impressed by my form, I assume, to catch me. “Do you want us to call an ambulance?” one of them asked, noticing as he helped me up that I was quite pregnant. “No, no,” I said, dusting myself off, “I’m sure I’m fine.” But they insisted, so I went to the hospital anyway.
Four hours, a dozen forms, and who-knows-how-many dollars later came the medical verdict: “The baby is just fine, and all you have are bruises.”
As I signed a few more forms for my release, the nurse had one last question: “What were you doing, anyway, when you fell?”
“It was all because of a coupon,” I started to explain. “Actually, it’s still in my wallet. You know what? You take it. It might as well do somebody some good.”
“Gee, thanks,” she said as she took it. “But it’s expired!”
I might have known.
