easy, indeed

we all know that people spend and save money in different ways. ann's refusal to take a taxi is legendary. i can't remember the last time i bought an article of clothing that wasn't on sale or at a discount shop; my relationship with filene's basement is the type of forbidden love only found in trashy novels. but we have been known to drop $75 on a meal, or on a night out with friends in a bar, in a heartbeat.

i think it has something to do with wanting to stick it to the man- the feeling that you are getting away with something, or getting something for nothing. we definitely get these tendencies from both sets of our parents. ann's dad regularly calls her from what he calls his "free phone" - that is, using his night or weekend minutes - or goes to great lengths to obtain black market satellite receivers so he'll get "NO-pay-per-view" movies. my mom is a devotee of her local recycling center, which actually a de facto salvation army. she'll leave the house with two bags of recycling and come home with four bags of books, dishes, and other sundries.

on monday, i think we finally hit a new high/low. while reading the boston globe on sunday morning, ann spotted an article about a well-known office supply store's customer appreciation event, during which they were passing out coupons for $7.50 per customer, for that one day only. (we won't name the store. we'll just call it "maples" for the purpose of this blog. we'll also ignore the fact that it really wasn't about appreciating their customers, it was about settling a class action lawsuit brought against them for violating state laws on pricing their merchandise.) despite the fact that we have orders coming out the whazoo, and multiple craft fairs to prepare for, ann and i decided to head over to "maples" to take advantage of the savings and pick up a few needed items.

to make a long story short, we wound up collecting about $60 worth of coupons and coming home with a mountain of items for free. we even resorted to hitting the same stores multiple times. at first, we just switched checkout lanes so the cashiers wouldn't bust us. but soon we were CHANGING OUR APPEARANCE to avoid attention at the door. jacket on, then jacket off. i even took off my glasses (because that'll throw them off the scent every time) and wandered blindly about the store looking for envelopes. at one point, i went back out to the car to GET my glasses, so i could actually see, and they gave me another coupon on the way back in. it was like shooting ducks in a barrel! i couldn't refuse!

our haul for the day:

• four glue sticks
• one 18" clear ruler
• three rolls of scotch tape
• 125 sheets of card stock
• one box of 6 x 9 envelopes (250 count)
• one box of no. 10 envelopes (100 count)
• one box of 2 x 4 mailing labels (1000 count)
• one packet of 1 x 2 5/8 mailing labels (750 count)
• one pack of sweet tarts