Well, dear readers, I know what you've all been thinking: Hey, Roz hasn't had a solid, coherent rant in a while! Just vague anger and some nonsense about cats. Well, we'll fix that!
This jerk walks into my store tonight. I'll call her Bonzo. Bonzo has stocked up on coupons, $2.00 off Brand Dentifrice (yeah, that's right, folks! We're using pseudonyms for general products now!). Well, our store happens to have Brand Dentifrice on sale for $2.00 right now! So, holy crap! That means it's free! Wow! That's so awesome! Hey, if you use TWO $2.00 coupons on one tube of Dentifrice, that means we'll just give you $2.00 out of the register!
FUCK YOU!!!!
No. That's not what it means. It means that Dentifrice has given you a voucher to use for their product. You bring that voucher to the store. You buy your Dentifrice, surrendering that voucher. We then return that voucher to Dentifrice, and they reimburse the store. Dentifrice wants their name out there. They want you to try their product. They are not giving you two dollars. They are giving you a voucher for a particular product. It's not a fucking gift card to be used as you wish, it's intended to offset some or all of the price of one specific item. If that product happens to be on sale when you choose to use that voucher, well, cool beans. You got the product for free.
So, Bonzo walks up to the register with one tube of Dentifrice and two Dentifrice coupons. And pitches the fit to end all fits when my cashier won't open the register and give her two dollars.
*sigh*
Okay. ... Okay... I...just...can't even.
Who's familiar with WIC? WIC is a United States government program to assist low-income mothers in being able to provide essentials for their children. I have never worked for the government and have never received these benefits, so I have no idea how the decisions are made, but somehow it is decided which vouchers are beneficial for which families. And these vouchers are really specific, such as one dozen large Grade A eggs or one large box of Cheerios. Somebody cannot come into the store with a voucher for a gallon of milk and instead use it on a gallon of orange juice. They cannot use the value of a voucher for a dozen eggs off of a carton of 18 eggs. If the dozen eggs are on sale for $1.99 down from the regular price of $2.49, you don't get fifty cents back after using the voucher on the sale item eggs. The US government is giving you a dozen eggs, no tradesies, no backsies.
Manufacturer coupons generally aren't as specific as WIC vouchers, but if you boil away all of the excess, the concept is quite similar. Here is a voucher for an item. You cannot use two vouchers on the same item. Got it? One coupon for $2.00 off your $2.00 tube of Dentifrice.
Not clear enough? Grab a manufacturer coupon. Any manufacturer coupon. On the top, near the expiration date, you'll see one of two things. It will either say "No cash value" or "Cash value is 1/100th of one cent." In the first case, acknowledge that your promotional voucher to encourage you to take a certain item home with you has no cash value; it is a fucking voucher. In the second, you want some money back? Give me one hundred of those bitches, and I'll give you a fucking penny. If you have the time and resources to obtain and carry around one hundred copies of the same coupon, I'll give you a penny. Out of my pocket, if need be. You've used $5 worth of ink and $2 worth of a paper (yes, as a matter of fact, I am pulling numbers out of my ass). You've earned a penny. Good job.
If you succeeded in using two manufacturer coupons for one item, it is the equivalence of theft. "But Roz, isn't that a bit of a stretch?" No. No, it's not. So, let's say you go to a store with an old, poorly programmed, DOS-y piece of shit register that doesn't know how to accept coupons and you get a cashier who doesn't understand how they work. Cashier takes two $2.00 coupons for your one tube of Dentifrice and gives you two dollars out of the drawer. The store is not going to be reimbursed for that second coupon, because the item was not sold and shit isn't going to match up on the reconciliation. So congratulations. You've stolen two dollars from a store. Or same scenario, bad register, unaware employee, "here's two dollars back." This time, however, the manufacturer of Dentifrice just blindly reimburses the value of all coupons turned in. Well, then, you fucking tool, good job, you just stole $2.00 from the Dentifrice company. If you're going to steal, do retail workers everywhere a favor and just steal the damn product. It's less paperwork for all of us. And, extra bonus, if we catch you stealing physical merchandise, we can have you arrested. And that's a good source of entertainment.
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