Green Stamps-- schmeen stamps! or I'm so green!

Here's what I am really interested in (today): Green Stamps or more precisely, S&H Green Stamps. Remember them? That magic dial above the cash register in most grocery stores? The stamps would stream out like fish poop. And, then, you'd get back home and pull the tattered book out of the kitchen drawer. I always preferred to separate each stamp before placing them in the book, but I know some people who would lick a whole string at a time. God bless their salivary glands. Every once in a while, you'd end up at the Green Stamps store often affectionately referred to as the Redemption Center. Rows and rows of "free" items. A Crockpot, a three-speed bike with ape bars, a baby doll that eats and poops, a guitar, a fondue set, a screwdriver set, a set of new floor mats for your car. It's like a Willy Wonka version of all the modern trappings of capitalism during the 1970's. But, really, I remember it like a scene from the novel 1984. The store had a bare minimalist feel: flickering fluorescent lights suspended from the ceiling, salt stained rugs at the door, acned teenage clerks with their haphazardly adorned smocks, and a handful of other radioactive low-income families fondling various items throughout the store who looked like a tribe that had just discovered fire

According to Straight Dope (yes, I did my research-- kinda), "Not everything was listed in the catalog, but you could negotiate with the company for pretty much whatever you wanted. One school in Erie, Pennsylvania even saved up 5.4 million Green Stamps to buy a pair of gorillas for a local zoo!" Whoo-hoo, Erie represent! I wonder if one of those gorillas has since passed away and the remaining one is sitting, lonely, in its cage, watching TV while waiting for a new shipment of fresh love-meat and wondering why those stupid humans can't figure out how to ship a new gorilla from Cleveland without killing it. Okay, there's probably not a TV in the cage anymore but there was!

Well, you'd think the Green Stamps are a thing of the past like Grit magazine ("America's rural magazine for 125 years"); but, like Grit magazine, you can still find it if you have the itch. Apparently, you can still access S&H Green Stamps on-line. Again, the Straight Dope states: "If you still have boxes of Green Stamps tucked away in your attic, here's good news. You can still trade them in for either cash or merchandise. Cash value of 1,200 stamps is $1.20 and you can still get a catalog by calling them at 1-800-435-5674."

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I guess I would just rather have cents off towards gasoline. But, do we get more cents off on gas as the price goes up or does the price go up the more we get cents off.

I'll leave you with those Golden Days memories. I have to go dance around the house to some Tom Waits with my daughters.