Man Cannot Live on Coupons Alone

I have an endless supply of hilarious stories from my college days.  Let’s face the facts, you get enough teenagers around one another and you are sure to find a plethora of funny stories due to the impaired judgment caused by youthful ignorance.  Case and point:

(Yes. That is my friend Sarah. 

And, yes. She is dressed like an Oompa Loompa.

And, yes.  She is a Doctor now.

And, yes.  Clearly I am a master photographer.)

Anyway, back to the story at hand.  At some point during our sophomore year there was some event that the university was sponsoring, and being the upstanding students that we were, Katy was left in charge of a HUGE stack of coupons to hand out to the events attendees.  The coupons were to our favorite Mexican restaurant- Don Pablo’s.

Don Pablo’s (or as we called it, Donny P’s) was our favorite for 3 very important reasons:

1. Location (it was absolutely the closest we could get to food that was not cafeteria food.  Very important… or as my friend Donny P would say “mui importante”)

2. The chips and queso.

3. The chips and salsa.

So, the stack of coupons Katy was supposed to hand out never seemed to make it into the hands of our fellow students.  All of the coupons were for FREE Chips, Queso and Salsa.  Imagine, if you will, a stack of over 200 coupons for free food.  Then imagine, you were a poor, hungry college student, with poor, hungry college student friends. 

Two words: Perfect Storm.

It would have been embarrassing, if we had any pride to begin with.  But did I mention the poor and hungry part?  We would often go to Don Pablo’s and use 2 or 3 coupons per meal.  But, our favorite thing was to call in an order of chips and queso then when we showed up we would hand over a trusty coupon and take our meal home with us.  When we got to our dorm, and people saw the Donny P’s bag being carried in, our room would turn into the college equivalent of a shark’s feeding frenzy.  People went crazy for the chips and queso.

We began to notice a problem when we realized that we were using our coupons 2 or 3 times a week.  It was getting more and more humiliating to order up some chips and queso that many times a week and never pay any money.  Not for a coke or for an enchilada or anything.

Eventually, the day came when our coupons were all used up and it was a sad, sad moment in time.  Like the end of an era…

(Also known as the beginning of being an adult and paying for stuff.)