Maybe this is where my creativity came from, or at least one of them. Comics in the Sunday newspaper. On days I spent lazily. On Sunday mornings my parents would go buy the Sunday Los Angeles Times, not to read articles or be updated on the recent current events of whatever the press likes to mention that week, but for the coupons. In goes $1.50 into the newspaper stand, and as always and penny pinching they take three newspapers. Three because that was the limit of how many coupons can be used on one item at the grocery store (back in the day) and with double coupon ability my mom was the best and smartest shopper I knew. She somehow was able to turn $67.87 turn into $3.45. The women behind her were amazed and probably grumpy from staying in line so long. The machine probably out-beeped its days worth too. She was smart. She searched for the unsuspecting teenager cashier who never looked carefully at coupons. Maybe something about moving to a foreign country with very little resources allowed this coupon-money-saving-talent grow or maybe it was innate. But as whiney American wannabe kids, we wined and made it hard for my mom.
Why do we have to shop for so long...
Man, are you done?
Noooooo, I don't want to stay in line!
and complains galore as any two little kids who probably spend more time in grocery stores not buying things than kids who steal things.
I knew my grocery stores in Ontario and Chino, CA, maybe in Covina, San Dimas and West Covina too. I knew which one had free food samples, which ones had reduced price chicken after 5 pm, which one were most crowded and popular, which ones looked old and remodeled, which ones had the newest carts, which ones had the nicest managers or the dumbest clerks, I knew them all.
The pile of newspapers drops in the car seat or on the dinner table, and instantly my brother and I rip them apart. We each grab for different things that we like to read. So with three sets we are able to each have a copy. If we woke up late our parents would get to the coupons at first then leave the rest for my brother and I to search through. My brother was rather systematic in the way he took out his favorite sections of the Los Angeles Times. Always neat. Mostly they were the electronic store ads. He read them in a certain order and always put it back neatly into the recycle bin as if no one had touched it.
I cannot clearly recount my own process but I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted the cartoon section, not the lame section with women who complain about their weight cartoons, cartoons with soldiers or the kiddie section with lame crossroad puzzles. I quickly skimmed the front to get through all the "political" cartoons really quickly because I didn't get it. Then the second page was the classics with the peanuts gangs. Then with the third being the charm it was my favorite page with all the "modern" cartoon strips, with non-sequitor and the likes. Then I read the Calendar for stupid celebrity gossip, their small section on cartoons, Ask Marilyn, and possibly an article or two if I found it interesting. Then onto the New York Times magazine to glaze over pretty photos of rich people's houses. Then now onto the colorful ads of each store in town from circuit city to best buy to target to see if there was anything that I can pretend to want to buy. And MAYBE just MAYBE I would actually read the newspaper but that was hardly ever the case.
My Sunday mornings would end with a full recycle bin and cut coupons scattered across the dining table and the rest was spend hoping that school wouldn't have to start. I enjoy routine. Or maybe I just miss it.
On Sundays my mind wanders from the weeks events. It's going to be Monday again, what happened? Time falls faster than I can catch it sometimes. Sometimes I don't catch it at all.
