T-minus 11 hours. I am sitting here with a pile of coupons and flyers from Albertsons, Vons, Ralphs, and Target. My son had me watch Extreme Couponing the other night and now I feel this heavy burden on my shoulders that if I can’t go and get $2,500 worth of food and have the cashier hand me a gift card worth $22.14 cents when I check out, what good am I? My success or failure as a mom, wife and human being really can be quantified by my ability to feed my family, my neighbors, my neighbors’ families, and the local homeless shelter for free. As I sit here with scissors in hand and a measly pile of about twenty coupons, I feel my self-esteem plummeting towards the center of the earth.

My son, who is 16, actually sat down with me yesterday and said, “Let’s clip coupons — it’s family time, Mom.” Wow, who would have thought I would ever see him helping me shop! Well, it lasted about 10 minutes and he moved on to watching Tosh.0 on the TV. Actually, I think he could see that the pile of poorly cut clippings I had before me would not merit a TV camera filming our every move on our next hunting and gathering expedition. Fame would be hard to find.

In fact, my shopping trip today is very important as we are about 11 hours away from three of our major chains actually closing their doors if the union goes on strike. The last time they went on strike, it was for about three months! And seriously — these folks should just be thankful they have a job. Anyhow, I am sure I will be joining about 15,000 other people who have waited until the last minute to go in and “stock up.” So let’s just say that I will be lucky if there is a single item left for me to even use a coupon on.