The Coup De Grâce For This Coupon Coup D’état

I’m going down an aisle when I see a customer opening a packet of popcorn.

Me: “Sir! You can’t open those until you buy them!”

Customer: “Nope! They got these coupons inside them, see?”

Me: “You have to buy the product to get the coupon, sir! That’s how it works.”

Customer: “No purchase necessary!”

Me: “The coupon doesn’t say that, sir.”

Customer: “Well, I got the coupon now, so there’s nothing you can do about it!”

As I’m talking to the customer, I hear the sound of a package being opened. I turn around to see a teenager doing the same thing.

Me: “You can’t do that!”

Teenager: “If that guy can do it, then so can I!”

Me: “No, that’s not how it works!”

But it was too late. Customers became aware of the coupons inside, and all day, they were just tearing open the packets and grabbing the coupons. Popcorn was just everywhere.

Management sent a memo up the chain that whoever’s bright idea it was to put coupons inside the packs should be fired, and that if the distributor wanted to do a deal like this again, we would absolutely refuse to stock any of them.

There was some saving grace. The coupons did have some small print on them that said “usable at participating stores”, so management decided our store was not participating, and all the ill-gotten coupons were rendered useless. Since we’re a small-ish town in a rural area, the nearest other store was quite a ways away, so good luck driving all that way to get a 10% discount on a pack of popcorn!