My EPIC Couponing FAIL

Remember that time when you were going to get $700 of groceries in the $200's zone, and you were going to be so stocked up with food & supplies that you weren't going to need to shop for your family for over a month?  You sacrificed your sanity watching football for an hour & clipping coupons, and then you spent an hour and a half, decked out in mis-matched pajama's & fuzzy blue slippers while averting smirks and stares from other customer's shopping in the middle of the night. While you were filling your cart with BOGO's and WYB5's, you subconsciously patted yourself on the back for following the prophet.  If an emergency were to happen, this stock pile could get your family through several weeks before you would need to break into your emergency food supply.  But when your mile long receipt was printing & you swiped your card, the cashier said, "Hmmm, maximum transaction limit?" 

SCREECH!  Thud, thud, thud.

The world halted!

Like, what?

You tried everything - called your sleeping hubby at 1am and he just kept sleeping, you called the bank, you checked online banking, you wrote a Minion check, you put your cart on hold & drove to the ATM....  And even though the bank said your available balance was many times the amount of what you needed to buy your groceries, the card wouldn't work in a store or in an ATM due to "irregular activity" on your account...even though only a few transactions were pending.  Only cold, hard cash worked, but you only had $60.  So then you had to drive back to the grocery store from the ATM in slow motion to face your humiliatingly ginormous Mt. Kilimanjaro grocery pile, get back all your coupons, push your mountain on wheels through a different line, and have the cashier help you work your favorite deals within a new puny limit.  That's when you subconsciously whacked yourself upside the head for not following the prophet.  Why didn't you have a quality amount of cash in your emergency cash stash...?

By the time you got home at 2:30am, you swore you'd never coupon again, even though you "need" to, and you thought, "At least it wasn't as bad as the last couponing fail..."  Actually, maybe this one was worse.  It is hard to beat, however, that one time a few years ago when you thought you were getting $200 worth of products for a mere $30 at Walgreens, but when it the transaction rung up, the total was astronomically high - like $400 high, and you bought it like that's what you meant to do, and then you freaked out at home, but you didn't want to go back, so you tried to return the products to a different Walgreens who obviously said, "We don't know what to do with this much product - you have to return it to the store you bought it from."  And that's when you sent your husband back to the store you purchased it from so you didn't have to show off your cherry-red-face with every bleep in front of the same cashier you bought the cartful from.  You felt relieved that you didn't have to face the lady again, until you realized your hubby threw you under the bus (and rightfully so) with every bleepity-bleep-bleep, and so for the next year you drove out of your way to visit any other Walgreens but the one closet to your house JUST so you wouldn't have to face that lady who WOULD remember you.

Wait.  Excuse me?  Wait, what?

You don't remember these things?

Perhaps that's because these RIDICULOUS events only happen to the unsuspecting, but overly ambitious couponing newbies...the unsavvy...the unlearned, and unwise...the unlucky....(ME)!

Come Monday when I went to the bank to figure out what happened & why my card wasn't working, they said it was for "possible identity theft".  No one stole my card, folks.  It was JUST ME.  But seriously, this WOULD happen to me.  Why wouldn't it?  I live in a world where I'VE STOLEN MY OWN IDENTITY!

Back to 1am. Pretend you're me at the cashier's stand.  Now decide whether to laugh hysterically or cry.

It's a toss up, right?

Time is money & money is time.  Maybe I should forsake my couponing adventures & go back to shopping at Costco.  ...using CASH ONLY for the rest of forever.  ...just to be safe.