I knew at some point this was going to have to happen. I can now reveal that during the 50’s and 60’s, not only me, but my entire family were “Philatelists”. Before you pass judgement a philatelist as defined by Webster is someone who collects or studies stamps. We were collectors. We collected copious amounts of S&H Green Stamps and Blue Chip Stamps. This phenomenon was pretty big when I was a kid. Retailers would offer these stamps when you bought things in their stores. The most common stores were grocery but you could also get these at other retailers. This was a way to control or impact where you as a consumer would spend your hard-earned dollars. The retailers would offer double stamp days or any number of promotions to help you make buying decisions. It was crazy. You had books to put the stamps in. Each book had approximately 20 blank pages. You would come home from the store, get out your books and carefully lick stamps and fill up the books. As you accumulated these books you would then go to an S&H Green Stamp Redemption Store and turn in a certain number of books and redeem them for things. The S&H Stamps said they had a value of 1 and 2/3 mils. The Blue Chip Stamps said their value was 1 mil. I am not sure what a mil is but who cares. We got these stamps for FREE… sort of. The redemption stores had catalogues which told you what you could get with a certain number of stamps or stamp books. You have to admit that this entire process was pretty creative. By the way S&H stood for Sperry and Hutchinson. Those were the guys who ran the company. Good for them. Most of the country was preoccupied with getting, saving, and redeeming these stamps. You can actually purchase these stamps today on line as memorabilia from the past.
I couldn’t leave this subject without mentioning something similar that most of us are familiar with today. No, it isn’t stamp collecting but it is ticket collecting at your local arcade. It is just a money grab. You play these arcade games and win tickets. For Free… sort of. Spending a lot of money in the process. Does it hurt less if you are buying tokens instead of putting money into the games? I think not. Sometimes the machines get out of whack and just start spewing all kinds of tickets out that you didn’t really win. Oh well. Anyway, at the end of your time at the arcade you take a ridiculous number of tickets to the prize counter. They are displaying things you actually might want but you will not be taking any of those home on this day. My stockpile of tickets will usually earn a colorful pencil or an eraser that fits on a pencil… also very colorful, or maybe one of those things that you put a finger in each end and try to pull your finger out but it won’t come out because this thing collapses around your finger. There have been instances that I could leave there with more than one pencil or more than one eraser. Also, if you have some unused tickets, they might show pity on you and give you a piece of bubble gum or even better a Jolly Rancher. Just so you don’t think that I am being too cynical there are other items that most of us will have enough tickets for, like colorful stickers, little plastic things that are also colorful but don’t really do anything, these are just something for the prize monitor to pass out for the right number of tickets. The single most important thing for these prizes is that they are colorful and glittery. I am convinced that the colorfulness helps make decisions easier. I won’t even begin to talk about the decision making by your children. We were all having a good time until Billy couldn’t decide what prize to take. The decisions must be made quickly so the next person in line can decide. It is best if you aren’t the first kid in line…that will give you time to make this all-important decision. Usually, it comes down to a couple of really insignificant choices. Unfortunately, they are only insignificant to you, not to your child. If you press the issue every one leaves in a bad mood. I guess one could make the decision to not turn in today’s ticket take but keep them and do this on a number of visits and eventually accumulate enough tickets to get a small Tonka Truck, or a Hot Wheels Car… a small stuffed animal, hair berets (colorful and glittery) or that ridiculous game with a paddle and a rubber ball attached to the paddle with a rubber band (whoever invented that thing?). This would mean that you would need to convince your kids to leave without any prizes that day. Good luck on that one. As bad as it is, as ridiculous as the paltry prizes are, it is the final step in this entire process. Shouldn’t your kids begin to understand how all of this works. I mean they are going to have kids someday. Why should you shelter them from these harsh realities? Don’t overthink this… turn in your tickets… take your treasures and move on.
Hope and pray that after you are in the car Mary doesn’t find some tickets in her pocket. What happens then? Do you go back inside or promise to buy her something for the unused tickets? At this point you have to earn your stripes as a parent and quickly start the car. It is possible that you didn’t hear Mary’s comment.
