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I get these awesome coupons every month from my favorite pet store, and I recently missed the window to use one. It expired on Oct. 26, and I went into the pet store on Nov. 25. I knew it had expired but I thought I would give it a shot anyway.
I did set an expectation, though, that the store would honor the coupon because, you know, I’m a very valuable customer. Well, that’s not what happened.
I asked a worker at the front of the store if they would still honor the coupon, and I believe I said something like, “This coupon just expired. Any chance you guys would still take it?” I don’t think I quite meant to make it sound disingenuous, like I thought the coupon had expired 12 hours earlier. But I did kind of do that.
She took one look at the coupon and said, “Sorry, no, we can’t take that. It expired a month ago.”
I pursed my lips a bit and said, “OK, thank you,” and I started to walk away.
From behind me, I heard her keep talking. She said, “Yeah, I mean, it expired an entire month ago, not recently.” It’s in these moments when I get into trouble.
For one, I already had rationalized that my expired coupon should probably be taken. Secondly, I do not handle anything that I perceive to be dunking on me. Is what she said actually dunking on me? Nah. She probably didn’t need to say it twice, but I would hardly say she was trying to throw it in my face.
My immediate reaction was to think about turning around and saying, “It didn’t expire a month ago, it expired 29 days ago, which is not a month, unless you’re counting February, a*****e!”
Luckily I have been working on just not saying or doing anything as much as possible. Just pause. In situations like these, there is no reason to fire back, or try to set the record straight, or decide that she’s not going to get away with thinking she’s better than me. If I ended up feeling like there was some reason for recourse later, I could do that.
But in this case, the pause will hopefully be a very long pause—I just let it go. I could tell it had more to do with me than her. I often let the rest of the world dictate how I feel about myself, and that’s on me. If I tie my self-worth to other people, I’m going to be in trouble.
At the pet store, I took a deep breath, smiled at the absurdity of my internal reaction, and I went about my business. When I got the register, I saw it was my new friend who would be helping me. She looked at me and I could tell she recognized me from earlier, and the only thing I could think was, “God, please don’t let her bring up the expired coupon again.” I can handle two remarks about it. I wasn’t sure about a third.
We stared at each other for a second and she started to open her mouth and I thought, Oh no, we are actually going to start arguing about a 29-day old coupon. But instead, she said, “I hope you found everything ok,” and I said, “I did.” I paid and left the store, and I felt like I just won the Super Bowl. Small victories are still victories, right?
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
"I was a self-made man--and I worshipped my creator."
(Credit: AA Grapevine, September 2009, by Anonymous, Oceanside, California)
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