a slight triumph

So when I get my contact lenses, my optometrist gives me a mail-in certificate for a rebate. It's a bit of a hassle but I get a prepaid card for $150 on two years' worth of contacts, so I do it. Mainly I use the card to repecuniate (thanks for that word, ellen_fremedon) my Starbucks card, which after some number of purchases I'm not able to determine gets me a free drink or food item. I hit Starbucks on the way to the Catholics every Sunday but almost never any other times, so I don't accumulate those points very quickly, but whatever. Anyway so I used half the prepaid card on my last Starbucks card fill-up, and last week I tried to use the other half - and the thing was declined because it had expired in September. (Why I didn't use all of it at once I don't know, but it was probably because the idea of more than a hundred bucks sitting there waiting to be spent on coffee and nothing else seemed vaguely obscene to me. Won't make that mistake again.)

I was annoyed and about to throw away the expired card when the Starbucks guy said But listen, you may be able to call and get a replacement? And he was not wrong. There is a number to call, and the worst that could happen was they said no. [shrug] And as it happened, I sat on hold for more than five minutes but less than ten minutes and they reactivated the thing so I can have them send me a reissue. I have to print and sign a form and I'll lose $19.95 of the $80 on the card, but hey, throwing away twenty bucks is way less offensive to me than throwing away eighty.

So I win! ... With a B-minus. I'll take it.