I’m positive that I have one of the greatest husbands in the world. He’s a wonderful father, caring husband, hard worker, decent enough son-in-law and he actually volunteers to clean out our garage at least four times a year. He never says a word about my Lululemon obsession, and doesn’t ever complain about the hundreds of those red statement bags piled high in our coat closet. There’s very little about him for me to criticize and most of the time I feel like the luckiest woman around.
Everything, however, changed last weekend. That gem of a man officially committed the worst offense imaginable to this suburban mom. He got involved in a part of my life that he had no business disrupting. Yup. You guessed it. He sifted through the “coupon pocket” in my car and threw away all of my “expired” Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons. ALL OF THEM. There must have been twenty or more coupons just waiting to save me money on Pillow Pets and spatulas and Yankee Candles and on a bag of Australian red licorice. He might as well have thrown away my threadbare sweatpants I’ve had since my CIT summer at sleepaway camp. I’m THAT mad.
Can you guess what he said when I approached him to ask what he possibly had to say for himself? He said, “Sorry, babe. They were expired.” I’ll repeat that. He said they were EXPIRED.
If you are a man reading this, you’re probably thinking to yourself that my husband is a hero. He saved me the time of performing such a mundane task myself. Maybe you’re even thinking about the mess of coupons you see filling up your wife’s car or pocketbook. But if you’re a woman who lives within seventy miles of a Bed, Bath and Beyond, you’ll agree that this is an act punishable by castration or worse.
I can’t say exactly why these coupons are so meaningful to me. I can’t say what makes me feel so proud to have expired Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons spilling out of my pocketbook as I peruse the aisles in search of the perfect waffle maker or those delicious but hard-to-find Island Coconut Keurig K-Cups. I can’t tell you that I wasn’t saving some of them to shop for my twin daughters’ first college dorm rooms (they’ll be heading off in just two years). I can only say that when the cashier tallies up all of the items in my cart and I hand her those shiny blue and white postcards stating “20% Off” or “$5 Off a Purchase of $15 or More”, my heart actually skips a beat as I wait to hear what my total savings will be. It’s a rush that is only rivaled by the feeling I get when I receive the printout of coupons at CVS after using my ExtraCare Card.
If you’re like any of the friends that I called to share my devastating story, you’re nodding your head right now because you feel the same way that I do. And you probably can’t explain why.
So let this serve as a call to action: Make sure your spouse KNOWS that Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons DO NOT EXPIRE and are not ever – and I mean EVER – to be thrown away. Marriages are on the line here. In the meantime, if you are ever shopping at Bed, Bath and Beyond and see a Lululemon-clad 5’4” brunette without any coupons paying full price for everything in her cart, you’ll know it’s me. Please say hi — and maybe share a coupon with me.
