When I booked my family's once-in-a-lifetime vacation to Maui, I planned it with a careful eye on the bottom line. Even for just the three of us — me, my husband, Keith, and our 9-year-old daughter, Veronica — this was going to be an expensive trip. I was determined to economize where I could. Get up at 3 a.m. to catch the cheapest flight? No problem. Endure a three-hour layover in Dallas to save several hundred dollars? Absolutely. Fly cramped economy class? Who cares? We'll be carefree vacationers! Whoopee!
But months later, as I was packing for our trip, it hit me: was I completely out of my mind? We were about to set off on a 14-hour haul, one that would start in the wee hours of the morning and would last until late at night. Let me just say that no one in my family is a model of patience, least of all young Veronica. And when one of us is tired and cranky, the bad mood spreads like a virus, with one irritable comment provoking an even more negative response. Left unchecked, the situation could easily deteriorate into relentless hours of snippiness and short tempers. This was not how I wanted to start my dream vacation.
But what to do about it? I decided that our travel stresses needed to be managed somehow, so that testiness didn't contaminate our whole trip.
Then I had an idea. I grabbed some paper and started writing: "This coupon entitles bearer to 10 minutes of whininess, irritability, poutiness, grumpiness, crankiness, sulkiness, and/or general disagreeableness." And, in a burst of lawyerly self-preservation, I added in small print, "Void where prohibited." I didn't know whether I would need to invoke that clause, but I wanted to be covered, just in case.
When I showed Veronica the coupon, she laughed, then pointed out that 10 minutes might not be enough. I agreed and made more coupons, three for each of us. (Hey, Keith and I get cranky, too!)
I didn't really expect the coupons to solve much. Like probing a toothache, there's a strange satisfaction to be found in complaining and sulking, a temptation that would be hard to combat with just a few scraps of paper. As it turned out, though, the coupons worked just fine — if not exactly in the way I had planned.
Print your Cranky Coupons now!
