I can't even type the above title without giggling, but it's true....when you coupon, sometimes there is drama.
I got my first taste of the theatrics when I came across an internet coupon that would give me free band-aids. Free band-aids!! Most internet coupons only permit you to print two, but every now and then you'll come across one that lets you print unlimited amounts and the Nexcare band-aids coupon was one of them. Tons of free band-aids!! Now this leads you to actually ponder how many band-aids one truly needs. Surely, more than two boxes. I have a kid, after all, and intend to have another. Cuts, scrapes, nonexistent boo boos that just need to be covered to feel better. Four boxes? Hmmm. Was I going for a lifetime supply of band-aids? They do take up very little space. It's not like my house would be filled to the gills with band-aids. I settled on eight boxes. Eight felt right. A substantial amount but not enough to get me on an episode of Hoarders: Buried Alive (I love that show, by the way, but that's a whole other post). Eight it was. I headed to my local Shop-Rite.
I walked up to the register with my wide variety of eight boxes to suit all my band-aid needs. Waterproof, comfort fit and active fit, of course, since exercise is very important to me. It consists of walking at approximately 1.5 mph with my son as he demands that he push the stroller.
"Ummm...." the cashier says and she looks over the coupons and turns her on light to blinking. Sigh...and we're blinking. But still, I'm not worried. My coupons are legit (they always are, that's how I roll).
Enter the front end manager, douchebag extraordinaire from hell. She looks me and my coupons over, all judgemental and then tells me the coupons are fake. She proceeds to tell me that I copied them from a circular which is not permitted. I calmly and politely (you have to be super polite when you coupon because some people find your coupons annoying right from the start) explain where I got my coupons. She tells me they're fraudulent. She keeps going on and was just being such a b!tch about it. Whatever...my band-aids were a no-go. I should've thrown them at her, but I politely walked away with my head held high.
I head to customer service to talk with them. We put our heads together and concluded that I should come back with the coupon printed out in color instead of black and white and intact rather than cut out of the 8 1/2 X 11 paper. Okey dokey. I go home, follow my instructions and come back with said coupon (now #9) in hand. Customer service looks it all over, initials it as okay, but tells me I can only use four of the same coupon at a time (that's an optional rule the store can use as its discretion). I thank the customer service woman, tell her to have a great day and go back to retrieve four boxes of band-aids (two of them being active fit due to my extreme exercise regimen).
Up at the registers, I am now faced with a dilemma. Which one do I go to? I decide to go to the same girl as before because I don't want anyone to think I'm sneaking around, trying to pull a fast one with my so-not-fraudulent coupons. I say hi, show her the golden initials and on goes the blinking light again. She quietly explains that she doesn't want to get in trouble with the front-end manager so she has to have her approve it. I take this as exhibit B that front-end manager is in fact the b!tch that she appears to be.
Enter the manager, who proceeds to tell me that she still thinks the coupons are fake. And how did I get more than two of them if I didn't make copies which is illegal? And how come this one's in color when the rest are black and white? After she has exhausted her Nexcare interrogation, she tells the cashier that she has to accept them anyway if customer service ok'd them but that she was going to go look them up online tonight when she got home.
What.a.complete.and.total.b!tch.
But guess what, b!tch? I've got free band-aids. And tomorrow, I'm coming back and getting four more boxes of glorious, waterproof, comfort fit, active fit, soothing, healing, bacteria-blocking goodness.
So there.
See? I can be a bitch, too. I'm just polite and smile at you while I do it.
