faster pussycat... type! type!

Attention shoppers, for the next 10 minutes, we will have a special offer. Two million dollars in Christmas coupons in exchange for your lives.

A couple of weeks ago, someone had a box of Tagalongs at work. Girl Scout cookies. Now I have put in an order for girl scout cookies, with the first order form I saw put up by some parent at my Place of Employment. But they won't be in until the first week of March. And yet... someone had a box of Tagalongs already. So, today, when I went to Safeway, I was hoping to see some Gscouts outside the store, hocking their wares. Sadly, no scouts.

Speaking of fundraising, however, I don't know if they do this were y'all live, but here organizations take coupons to the products with a sticker that says "oh, you can use this coupon if you want, but if you are a GOOD PERSON you'll donate the savings to the St. Muckymuck Academy Varsity Cheerleading Team." I don't know why, but I always resent these stickers. They piss me off. Like you have any choice! Of course you are going to donate the money. Otherwise the checkout clerk will look at you like you are a cold hearted bitch. And she'll point you out to all the other clerks, "there's the girl who wouldn't give TWENTY FIVE CENTS to help the St. Muckymuck Academy Varsity Cheerleading Team raise money to go to the Cheerleading Championship in Daytona!" Boo-hiss, cold hearted bitch. It's true, I don't care about cheerleaders. I don't let them wash my car, when I see them standing on the corner in their bikini tops, holding up signs and whooping. I wash my own damn car. Well, I drive it through the touch free car wash. I think the parents of the St. Muckymuck Academy Varsity Cheerleading Team should fork over the cash so their privileged children can go to cheer camp. I'm less inclined to get annoyed when it's something like a softball team trying to raise money for equipment, but I still harbor this irrational resentment.

When I was a kid, we never taped coupons to things in grocery stores, we had to sell things ourselves. And I was shit at it. Which is probably why my career with the girl scouts was so short. [although, I like to tell people I got kicked out of the scouts for beating up a Brownie.] In high school, I belonged to the more service oriented organizations; Red Cross, Key Club. Or academic ones like French Club and National Honors Society. Key Club fund raisers weren't bad, because we sold candy to our Ritalin deprived classmates. Blow-pops, I believe. They were a big hit. but NHS was horrible! They made us sell terrible trinkets door to door. Christmas tacky christmas ornaments and shit like that. Nothing you could sell to your fellow students. I think, one year, I went to maybe two houses before I decided that a career in sales was not for me. I never did well at fund raising. Some kids had parents who would take their order forms to work with them, and hit up their coworkers. Not me, my mom said I should do it myself. She probably thought it would build character or something. But I am chock-full of character! So I'd sell one to my parents and two to myself but make up fake names. That's it.

So today, I when I took down a box of Honey Bunches of O's [with Strawberries] a millisecond before before this mom was going to tape a coupons on said brand of cereal, I didn't give in. She gave me a look, with a little smile, and I think I was supposed to hold out my box of cereal so she could tape a coupon on it. Instead, I gave her a look that clearly stated, "get your god damn fund raising coupon away from me, soccer mom! Let your kids go out and shill crap themselves! I hear it builds character."

Posted by jodi at février 12, 2005 01:05 PM

Oh those coupons are in the Midwest as well. I give them my thanks as I use the coupons with glee. Call me a heartless bastard, but come on, it is meant to make you feel "all so gooey with goodness" without actually having to be "involved". I really hate begging in all of it's forms. I will be the first to throw out a dollar for a candy bar if the kid themselves makes the effort to "sell it". I want to make the kid feel that THEY made a difference and what THEY are doing is for a good a cause. The parents just have guilt.

Posted by: DrinkJack at février 12, 2005 06:27 PM

Have you noticed that some coupons have a little "cash value" amount, usually 1/100th of a cent. I wonder if anyone has hoarded enough coupons to claim them as actually money?

Posted by: Thomas at février 14, 2005 10:08 AM