I should start out by saying that I long loved Bed, Bath & Beyond. There’s no mystery to it; I’m the one who likes to cook in the family. On the other hand, stock in Stouffer’s tends to spike whenever my wife does the food shopping.
So it may come as a shock to know that I am officially a creditor of Bed, Bath & Beyond.
The story starts back one Christmas years ago when I returned something – I’m not exactly sure what – and was given a choice of a cash or a store credit. I took the credit, because why not? BB&B wasn’t likely to go out of business any time soon, right?
The credit sat in my email for years as I kept forgetting to print it out so I could present it to the clerk whenever I shopped there, which was a few times a year (this was in that period in history before I learned that digital coupons could be scanned off a person’s phone). So there it stayed until April 23, when BB&B announced that it was calling it quits.
My first thought was, “How can this be?” followed quickly by, “When is the sale?” and then, “Will they honor my 10,000 coupons?” and finally, “Oh. My. God. I have an unused store credit!”
My wife, who a) has been trying in vain for years to downsize our collection of kitchen gadgets and b) no doubt envisioned me renting a U-Haul to clear out the Wolf Road BB&B, and c) once handled the going-out-of-business sale at a local store of a national chain, tried to talk me down, pointing out that the early discounts would probably be so low that I’d be paying more than if had I used a coupon before the bankruptcy.
“But the discount PLUS the coupon would be, like, huge,” said I confidently.
“They’re going to stop honoring coupons,” countered she heinously.
I could not quite get my head around that concept. BB&B had always honored those blue and white coupons,…
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