I stole a coupon this week.
I’m not going to lie- I was amazing. So smooth, so stealth, you’d think I pilfered regularly. I yearned to brag about my prize, but decided against it. I have to draw the decency line somewhere and my line happens between stealing a coupon and actually telling people about it over cocktails….so I’m doing it here.
I practice a respectable level of laziness, which is why I refuse to get on my hands and knees with rags to clean my stone floor every time we spill something. I like shortcuts. The best shortcut is not doing it myself, but 10-year-old Cal insists on going to school Monday through Friday, and I just don’t have the heart to add floor duty to her list of chores (she did a stellar job of preparing my taxes this year) .
I researched hard surface floor cleaners. Each one presented a new shortcoming-too heavy, too weak, too unstable, too complicated and one was just too ugly. I like to clean a spill in style. After a week of back and forth, I finally threw my hands up and decided, “Forget this. I am too cool for emotional upheaval over a floor cleaner. I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. I’m a worthy human being.” Thank you, Stuart Smalley.
You really don’t realize how much you love need someone something until it’s gone….like a Bed, Bath & Beyond coupon. Yes, it was my own purely preventable fault that after eight years of throwing away their mailings, Bed, Bath & Beyond got tired of me, Mrs. Ungrateful, and decided to stop wasting a coupon and postage on me. Oh, Hindsight, you unforgiving, malevolent devil.
So, I stole one.
At the eye doctor’s office.
From an interior design magazine.
It took me almost three minutes to tear it out, carefully and soundlessly, so the receptionist wouldn’t catch on.