VivaCity

I have discovered an underground cult. They could be your sister, your bus driver, that little old lady innocently clipping hedges across the street. They are...bum ba BUM...coupon clippers! The advent of the Internet has opened up wide new avenues to those who before simply dutifully clipped the coupons their families might need that month. Today you can visit entire websites geared towards the sale and trade of that priceless commodity, the coupon. At first I gaped, then I scoffed. Now...I trade. I'm a blatant abuser of the Sunday paper's insert, and if I see the word "FREE" my heart does a little hop-skip-jump. Newsprint gold. Invaluable on the open market. I remember a commercial about some guys in an Internet cafe, trading stocks and bonds or something, and the one guy has to warn the other to duck, because there is money flying in the air over their heads. The virtual trade. Well, ladies and gentleman (not a typo, I think there's maybe ONE guy out there doing this), you may want to duck again, because the coupons are FLYING, baby.

I can just imagine when my children are older and asking me about "back in the day," I can tell them about that thar new-fangled thang called the Intry-net and how I used to trade coupons across the country to keep them in name-brand diapers and bath soap. I'll be one of the Google Generation, a proud Ebay parent and a WebMD-certified Dr. Mom. The more I think about it, the more I realize just how heavily I rely on the Internet. Which begs the question...What did we do BEFORE said Internet?? Did we really wait til family functions to brag about our kids? Did we really wait til the 6'o'clock news for our updates, or even, crazily, the newspaper the NEXT DAY? Ludicrous to think how stale that news seems when compared to the instant gratification of CNN.com. But the dinosaur we call the common newspaper survives for what I believe may be one reason, and one reason alone...that damnable coupon insert.