coupons

sunday is coupon day in our house…and i’m definitely not the one clipping them. yep, that’s right folks, it’s the man of the house…coupon mom himself. this started about 4 months ago, and it’s been a bit of an obsession since. if you don’t believe me, you should take a peek at his blessed “binder”.  it's organized by date, coupon publisher, and product.

don’t get me wrong, i love to save money as much as the next gal…but there are just plenty of other things i’d rather be doing on a Sunday morning. running, playing with ella, reading a book….scratching my ass….to name a few. okay, so I’d rather be doing anything than clipping coupons on a sunday morning. it’s gotten to be such an obsession for him that one particular morning i was startled awake when he barged through the bedroom door, hands on his head (5am) and said, “you are never going to believe what happened!” i sat straight up in bed, rubbing my eyes and said, “what?!” the things that were running through my head were…the dog ripped apart the trash, someone hit our house with their van (it’s happened before), ella was kidnapped…who the hell knows. he blurts out “some bastard stole my sunday paper!!” (for those of you who don’t know, the sunday paper is the couponer’s bible) after realizing it was nothing serious, i also realized something else…it was SATURDAY. upon which i yelled, “it’s saturday you dick bag!” and went back to sleep.

it’s not just the clipping of the coupons that is a real treat to watch. (think…grown man in his underwear on the floor of our living room with a sea of papers around him, furiously cutting out each one with his ‘special’ scissors) afterwards, he goes online and finds who is having the best deals of the week (we have a Giant, Safeway, & Food Lion a mile from our house). then he has to correspond each coupon to each sale item, so he is paying as little as possible. and holy shit, you should see the exuberance this man has when he realizes that he can get something for free. (FREE!) he’s like a kid who just found a golden ticket in a wonka bar.

when the clipping & corresponding are done…then comes the shopping. i refuse to be a part of that as well. i mean, it takes HOURS. hours, people. And not like 1 or 2…more like 3 or 5. He has also said that ella and i mess up his “flow” when he’s shopping, and god forbid i mess up someone’s couponing flow. after the shopping, he comes home with his bags of goodies (all from like 5 different stores) and proceeds to pull out each item and rattle off either how much it was, or how much he saved.  i nod my head and add an ‘ooooo’ and ‘aahhh’ in there every once in a while to make him happy. when he first started doing this,  he was really bad at just getting things because they were very cheap, or free. this was until I found his “secret stash” of body wash (like 27 bottles) and went off on him. i told him he had enough body wash to wash his ass for the next 75 years…enough was enough! several people received body wash as a Christmas present this year (merry Christmas…wash your ass. love, butch) i did find about 10 bottles of shaving cream hidden after that and when i brought them to his attention he yelped, “ I know! I know! But they were free! They were free!”  i acted mad on the outside, but i was laughing on the inside.

i hate couponing in general and i think that hurts his feelings. that’s the thing about butch. when he likes something, he desperately wants you to like it too. i can’t tell you how many times he’s asked me to try Heineken beer, even though i’ve stated many (many) times that i don’t like it. when we go out to eat, he always will ask “wanna bite?”, holding out his fork. every single time I say no, yet he asks me...Every. Single. Time. i foresee us being in the cafeteria of a nursing home, and he’ll lean over his tray and say “wanna bite?” with jello or rice pudding hanging off his shaky spoon. it’s inevitable. it’s one of the things i love about him…and one of the things that drives me absolutely crazy.

and so, i sit another Sunday morning, sipping my coffee…watching the coupon charade play out.  if anyone wants to come over and have a cuppa joe…enjoy the free entertainment, you are invited. hell, you may even go home with a free bottle of body wash if you're lucky.