Coup d'épon

A few days ago, I went to the Exchange on the nearby military base to buy a Xbox. Ours was getting a bit slow due to software developers dropping snippets of code to ensure that ancient hardware performs at the speed of a tree sloth's digestion, guaranteeing an upgrade. We play a lot of first person shooter survival games on Xbox, and the other day the graphics load was so lethargic that I was able to run through a wall of a building that hadn't quite rendered yet. I thought it was funny until my avatar ended up stuck inside a refrigerator.

Items bought at the Exchange are usually a few dollars cheaper plus devoid of any state tax because military bases are federal property. A purchase earlier in the week got me the added bonus of a $15 dollar off coupon which in retrospect should have been perused for the fine print. When I bought the Xbox, the sales person pointed out that my coupon was good between May 10 and May 12, and today was the 9th.

"You'll have to come back tomorrow to redeem this coupon," she cheerfully explained.

Apart from the fact that this was a 1970's marketing campaign reminiscent of K-mart's blue light specials, I agreed to return to the store to redeem my coupon even though the last time I was involved in something like this, I was skipping to school with a lunch box. I was just glad that I wasn't getting the real royal treatment of my youth which was being told to box up the purchase, return it, then buy it again on a date delineated on the coupon. We actually did things like that before the internet.

The Blue Light District

It didn't matter all that much because I also needed to secure a few uniform items for both me and my son. I'm retired so I thought it wasn't likely that I would ever be in uniform again, but Aidan joined Sea Cadets and performs Taps on his field regulation bugle at military services. When your fourteen year old son puts on a uniform and asks his father to do the same, the next evolution involves securing pants that fit. And that's what I was doing at the uniform shop at the Exchange along with dropping off Aidan's service dress blues and summer whites for dry cleaning. Conveniently, the cleaners were located at the service desk so after offloading the clothing, I retold the story the sales clerk said to me the day before in regards to the coupon, then I presented the receipt for the Xbox.

"You made this purchase yesterday, not today," the service desk person noted.

“Yeah, but she said...”

"What you need to do is pack up the Xbox and return it, then buy it again."

"You can't be serious?" I asked.

"The coupon says that it applies to purchases between May 10 and 12," they exclaimed.

"How 'bout apply it to the dry cleaning?" I reasoned.

"It's not valid for services."

So I figured I would use it on my new summer white pants and shoes I needed to complete my post 50, fat ass, uniform. At the uniform shop, I found what I needed, then had the slacks fitted. When I went to settle up, I pushed my $15 coupon. The clerk said,

"You can't use this for uniform items."

"I suppose I can't use it for alterations either?"

"No, that's a service."

Undaunted, I finished up at the uniform shop, then went back to the electronics department. I found the woman who sold me the Xbox.

"I never said that," she explaindecd.

"Yes, you did," I retorted.

"No, I said you would have to come in and buy it again."

I know I'm getting old and occasionally forget my kid's names or call my sister by my wife's name, but I'm sure she told me, just yesterday, to come in with the receipt to redeem the coupon, but now things had all changed. The best I could come up with was that overnight a coup d'état replaced all the reasonable people who just yesterday would've pushed this paperwork through with puppets who succumb to authoritative rule mostly out of fear of being sent to the gulag. As I envisioned swinging a twenty pound sledge hammer shot put style at a mammoth screen of a bureaucrat shouting orders to the masses, I found myself in the unusual position of not needing anything. Decades of unabashed consumerism ground to a halt at this very moment. I moved on to the checkout lines in front of the store, bent on paying it forward. I spotted a dude at a register.

"Hey man, you want $15 off your purchase?"

"Excuse me?" the guy asked.

After explaining my plight in what was likely too much detail, the guy happily agreed. The sales clerk glanced at the coupon,

"It's not applicable to gift cards."

Apparently, my shopping brother was buying gift cards, but he also had a giant sack of dog food.

"What about the dog chow?" I asked.

"It's not applicable to bulk pet foods."

I scanned the fine print on the back of the coupon. "It doesn't say that!"

"Third paragraph," the cashier said.

The text on the back of the coupon was slightly larger than a pixel so I couldn't make out most of the words. I did spot the word "dog" which not surprisingly is "God" spelled backwards.

"Okay, let's try it this way. What is this coupon good for?" I asked.

"Products purchased today, tomorrow and the next day," the cashier answered.

"I also have these," my new found financial partner exclaimed. He had a Red Bull and a candy bar.

"That's not enough. It has to be over $15," they explained.

I grabbed a Snickers bar and tossed it on the counter.

"How about now?"

"Still not enough."

I grabbed a handful of Sour Patch Kids and dumped them on the counter.

"Now?"

"That should do it."

Satisfied that I stood in defiance of the machine, I turned and walk out.

"Thank you!" the guy exclaimed.

I raised my fist in the air as I shouted,

"Power to the people!"

As I made my way through the parking lot, I got a text from my wife,

Editors's Note: Originally posted on May 15, 2018.