Opening Night In The Checkout Line

Back in 1989, when my wife and I moved to Arizona, we didn’t have two nickels to rub together. We rarely went to the movies and had a crummy TV set (sans cable), so we went to some odd extremes for social activities. In addition to wandering/window-shopping at the hoity-toity Biltmore, we’d go to supermarket openings. Here in the Phoenix area, there must be more supermarkets per square inch than any major city in the U.S.

I vividly remember attending opening day at Smith’s ® on Camelback Road. The place was so crowded, they had security guards in the parking lot. I remember enjoying opening day at a Basha’s and maybe even an Abco (which has since departed Arizona). Big fun at supermarket openings includes free samples, triple coupons and maybe even a remote broadcast from a local country station.

For old time sake, early tonight we attended the grand re-opening/remodeling of a Safeway a few miles from here. How excited was my wife, you ask…it was her second trip of the day, this time armed with a 10% off everything from the hours of 4 p.m.-8 p.m. Lots of great free samples which included some disgusting breaded cod and perhaps the white-floury-ist cake every made by human hands. Seriously, the place looked great and we saved $13 in coupons. Yes, we cut coupons, if you must know. Cutting coupons is a Sunday ritual for me which initially started out of need and then became an interesting habit as it’s often a great place to learn about new products. As someone who is a futurist, I love to see what’s new to the marketplace. Heck, on double coupon night, you can save enough money to actually pay for the petrol it takes to get to the supermarket.