But Monday mornings can be a little dreary, and so that might have been why I was hit with a bit of sadness when I looked in my trash this morning and saw this:
.JPG)
Oh expired Burger King coupon book, I hardly knew ye.Well, that's almost what I saw...the yogurt cup is from lunch and would be in my recycling bin if the transfer station bothered to take more plastics. And I don't really care about the wrapping from a roll of Hannaford-brand paper towels or the butter-encrusted bag of Jolly Time from the weekend's Netflix fest. So that leaves that SuperAmerica Speedy Rewards membership card right there on top.
It was both a lazy and productive weekend, and yesterday I opted to do some overdue cleaning. When I went through my desk drawers, I found a few things that could be tossed out. One was a little plastic SA Speedy Rewards oval, which is designed to fit on a key chain and be easily swiped under a scanner. The program designates point values to certain items in the SA convenience stores, and you can trade them in for rewards such as free drinks or gas discounts. SuperAmerica is a strictly Midwestern affair, and on my last trip to Minnesota I discovered that the points I had accumulated during my college years had expired. So, since my Minnesota trips are few and far between now, I tossed the oval and figured I might as well get rid of the SA card in my wallet while I was at it.
I didn't think anything of it at the time, but saw it in something of a different light this morning. Sure, it's just your standard rewards program card, but it has a bit of nostalgic value related to my time at Macalester College. I got it in my senior year, when I was living in a house on campus and buying gallons of milk on a regular basis. They were a bonus item at that point, worth 200 points apiece, and so I easily earned a couple of treats before milk went out of the rotation. The card also proved its worth on a couple of outings with friends, including a Blockbuster mission with the goal of getting one good movie and one terrible one; donuts were the bonus item then, and proved too good to pass up.
We're walking in the air...We're floating in the moonlit sky...
It was both a lazy and productive weekend, and yesterday I opted to do some overdue cleaning. When I went through my desk drawers, I found a few things that could be tossed out. One was a little plastic SA Speedy Rewards oval, which is designed to fit on a key chain and be easily swiped under a scanner. The program designates point values to certain items in the SA convenience stores, and you can trade them in for rewards such as free drinks or gas discounts. SuperAmerica is a strictly Midwestern affair, and on my last trip to Minnesota I discovered that the points I had accumulated during my college years had expired. So, since my Minnesota trips are few and far between now, I tossed the oval and figured I might as well get rid of the SA card in my wallet while I was at it.
I didn't think anything of it at the time, but saw it in something of a different light this morning. Sure, it's just your standard rewards program card, but it has a bit of nostalgic value related to my time at Macalester College. I got it in my senior year, when I was living in a house on campus and buying gallons of milk on a regular basis. They were a bonus item at that point, worth 200 points apiece, and so I easily earned a couple of treats before milk went out of the rotation. The card also proved its worth on a couple of outings with friends, including a Blockbuster mission with the goal of getting one good movie and one terrible one; donuts were the bonus item then, and proved too good to pass up.
We're walking in the air...We're floating in the moonlit sky...So basically I saw a bit of my college days lying in the garbage. And it triggered some nostalgia for them, now just about four years gone, and is there any better way to start a Monday morning than with an emotion my somehow surviving Webster's dictionary defines as "a yearning to return to the past"? I had plenty to keep me occupied during the day, but it made me want to write up the incident anyway.
The card is still lying there in the trash can. I have a touch of hoarding instinct; the housecleaning that claimed the SA relics spared a bunch of old National Geographic maps, even though I don't have much use for them. Usually I'll reassess something every time I see it, and eventually it might end up getting consigned to the junk heap or a thrift store. The card may have a couple of small memories attached to it, but it's nothing that isn't stored in my head anyway. And I can't get all emotional over rubbish, after all.
"That fast food bag reminded me of my first date..."
The card is still lying there in the trash can. I have a touch of hoarding instinct; the housecleaning that claimed the SA relics spared a bunch of old National Geographic maps, even though I don't have much use for them. Usually I'll reassess something every time I see it, and eventually it might end up getting consigned to the junk heap or a thrift store. The card may have a couple of small memories attached to it, but it's nothing that isn't stored in my head anyway. And I can't get all emotional over rubbish, after all.
"That fast food bag reminded me of my first date..."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment