Dear CVS Receipt,
I’m sorry but someone needs to tell you this: You’ve forgotten who you are.
You are not a string of scarves being pulled from a magician’s mouth. Yet that’s exactly what you looked like as the self-checkout machine printed you out for an honest-to-God 45 seconds.
You are not the floor of an abandoned Valpak factory. Yet you are absolutely covered in useless coupons I will never use.
And you are not “Red Sea Urchin,” a world-record-holding piece of origami that must be folded 913 times. Yet that’s half as many folds as it took to get you into my wallet.
You are a receipt. And it’s time you started acting like one again.
That’s right, I said “again.” Because there was a time, not so long ago, when you were a sensibly-sized piece of paper that simply documented my purchases and NOT a QR code slathered monstrosity curling up at both ends like a cartoon dickey.
So how did we get here from there? What happened? Why are you acting this way?
Have you become a booby prize meant to punish customers who don’t pay attention during checkout? Did I zone out and miss the question, “Would you like your receipt via text, email, or Gordian Knot full of surveys and ‘Extrabucks' offers you can’t throw away fast enough?”
Or are you mixed up in some sort of Brewster’s Millions style inheritance scheme? Except instead of needing to burn through your great-uncle’s vast fortune of money you need to burn through his vast fortune of register tape?
Or are you just trying to be part of the conversation? Hoping that one day people will stop saying, “Michael Fassbender’s hung like a horse,” and start saying, “Michael Fassbender’s got a dick the length of a CVS receipt”?
Whatever’s going on with you, I’m only bringing it up because I care. And because I don’t know what to do. So please, CVS Receipt, the next time I stop in to buy face wash, a beachball, and Easter candy I hope you’ll leave instructions on yourself outlining how I can help. Be as detailed as you like. God knows there’s plenty of fucking room.
Yours,
Berkley