8/14/2011

Extreme Couponing

I'd like to know, when those cameras are following hapless couponers through large American grocery chains, do the managers throw unadulterated hissy fits off-stage?

Do they see that fiend coming through the parking lot and break a sweat, knowing they're about to be bent over and asked about their father? Does it haunt their dreams at night that at any given moment, TLC might bust in their doors with a heavily made-up woman screeching and caterwauling over heavily-discounted Lipton's Sidekicks?

If it were my store, I'd be puking buckets of slugs every time I opened the place in the morning.

That's not to say I haven't tried to scrounge a dollar in savings from time to time. But up here, our cashiers aren't as warm and welcoming; they won't give you a high-five when you show up with your stack of fliers to price-match.

I won't even lie - the death-look I received from my cashier last night was enough to char the roots of her perfectly-peroxided mane. All I wanted was chicken burgers for 50% off! I only had one cart!

If you damned teenagers would just turn from MTV's pregnant happenstance soaps, and learn the value of a supposedly doomed dollar, my grocery trips could be just as fun as TLC makes them out to be!

... well, that is, if our coupon rules in Canada were anything like yours. Should any reader happen to think there's nothing wrong with America's couponing rules (and I can assure you, the economy is not being helped by food-hoarding for pennies on the dollar) I invite you to read the fine black-print-in-bright-yellow-box that Canadian coupons bear.

Once you're done reading them, you'll put it right back down and be totally comfortable paying full purchase price for said item, because you're scared and confused and just wanted some Oreos.