i spy- schweddy balls (a tale of woe).

i’m not really an ice cream person. i don’t hate it, it’s usually  just not at the top of my list when it comes to consuming mass quantities of crap food. i would much rather hit the cheez-its, or the cheez doodles, or anything else so processed and atomically  orange that it is forced for legal reasons to spell the word cheese with a Z. either that, or a stick of butter. (yes, a WHOLE STICK). i essentially only eat ice cream on birthdays or scorching summer days where i accidentally end up within a five mile radius of a DQ.

but then a few weeks ago, ben & jerry’s announced a brand new limited edition flavor called schweddy balls. i generally find ben & jerry’s to be a bit too heavy, and to have too much crap in it (too sweet is the kiss of death in my book). but something about rum flavored ice cream with malt balls and rum balls sounded like the most amazing thing i had ever heard of, and i became COMPLETELY OBSESSED with finding and ingesting it post haste.

except that they weren’t fucking around when they said limited edition. apparently only dispatched to 30% of their stores, and not available on the “flavor locator“, it became the motherfucking holy grail of ice cream. i checked every supermarket and convenience store in town. NOTHING. i put out an APB on twitter. lots of complaining about how nobody else can find it either, and an unhelpful rumor about it being spotted in bangor. essentially, NOTHING.

weeks passed, and with my new obsession came an unquenchable thirst for ice cream. every time i would to into a store and be disappointed, i would sooth my disappointment with a pint of something else:

shit, i forgot the coupons.

for xmas, i gifted myself with a subscription to the sunday paper. it’s minimally cheaper than buying it at the store, and conveniently delivered to my front door before 7 am. thus, i can stay in my sweatpants and be lazy and not brave the cold cold walk down to the sketchy sketchy 7-11. or so i had hoped! first sunday, NO PAPER. i figured maybe it just took them a minute to get the party started. last sunday, NO PAPER AGAIN (later resolved with an agitated call to the circulation department- i hope)!  thanks to a 7 hour a chorus line rehearsal on sunday, i didn’t have the time or energy to go get one on my own. i hit the grocery store on tuesday, but sadly, there were none left. a couponless week! what’s a girl to do!?

when i first started my coupon clipping adventures over a year ago, a moment like this would have sent me into a panic spiral. to think of all the deals that i would miss, the freebies loaded into the carts of strangers that wouldn’t be available to me without those magic slips of paper… i don’t remember if i ever cried over such a situation, but i also don’t remember not crying. when i first started out, i would get a crazy high off my deal mongering and would hit multiple drugstores multiple times per week- often spending hours in the aisles trying to cobble the perfect deal (poor boyfriend left to languish in the car).

but then, i kind of got over it.

i don’t have any idea how extreme couponers keep the ball rolling… it’s so much pre-planning and work! after a while, my coupon energy ramped down and my desire to have every single deal faded away (my stockpiles grew too large… i ended up with items i couldn’t use or donate…i was fucking tired…). if i missed a newspaper, so what? if i forgot to bring my coupons to the grocery store, meh!

i still go through peaks and valleys of coupon focus/mania, but in terms of the emotional highs and lows that i used to hit, i have figured out a few things along the way that are guaranteed to always talk me off the ledge:

an open letter to concord trailways.

dear concord trailways:

back in my college days, i rode the greyhound with reckless abandon. so what if it had dirty pay toilets, and if i couldn’t get on the bus without some sketchy dude giving me his phone number.  2 hours smashed up against a window with an overly chatty seatmate whose only carry on luggage was a cardboard sign- NO PROBLEM (true story). guy across the aisle trying to look down my top while suggestively rubbing his groin area- CAKE (double true story). hey, is that a LIVE RABBIT in your tote bag? YOU BET (seriously, the greyhound is NUTS). when i was 19, it seemed like par for the course to spend my bus hours sweatily clutching a snapple bottle that i could smash against the window and cut anyone who tried to touch me. greyhound and i were old friends.

but somewhere along the way… maybe around the time i got my own apartment and could no longer wear my sweatpants to work… i found you concord trailways. with your spotless and airportlike bus terminal, free donuts and juice, and in-flight movie, greyhound was a mere smelly and uncomfortable memory. and it is that undying love and respect that i have for you now (there is no other bus in my mind), that brings me here to talk to you today. concord trailways, i have an AMAZING IDEA, but i can’t do it without you.

last week, my twitter friends @badlerory77 and @drwhogirl and i were having a little chat about going to ikea. unfortunately, the closest ikea is 127 miles away. it’s tough for portlanders. many of us don’t have cars at all, and for those of us that do have cars, most are not large enough to carry a billy bookcase home without 78 bungee cords and a lot of fervent prayer. this is where you come in, with your roomy cargo compartments and plush seats…

what if a couple times a month, you took us all on a trip to ikea? picture it- a sunny saturday morning, we could have snacks and watch a movie and finally all get a chance to load up on lingonberry jam and particle board furniture.  it would be the perfect combination of fun and convenience, all wrapped up in the solidarity of people who want good design but can’t afford to pay for it. all i’m saying is that i think it could really be brilliant, and i really want you to be a part of it.

you don’t have to answer right away, but promise me you’ll think about it. we’ve been together a long time… i think you owe me that much.

love forever,

allie.