We returned from our wonderful three-week family vacation in Europe last week (London, Venice, Germany), which I hope to tell you about one of these days just as soon as I get all 2500 photos culled and organized (ha). Until then, today I had this question on my mind: So what do you do with all of your Bed, Bath, and Beyond Coupons?

All I’ve been doing since getting back last Wednesday (other than a dozen loads of laundry) is shopping and restocking the house for what only must be the impending apocalypse. Seriously, we really ate and used up pretty much every last damn thing in the place before we left the country. I think I’ve been to about five grocery stores, Target twice, and a ginormous Costco run. C has even stopped at the store a few times himself. Finally feeling good about being restocked on the basics as of yesterday, that meant time for a quick survey of the yard and the summer toys and games. Yep, those are pretty much destroyed and in need of replacement as well. Happy summer to us!

Enter today’s trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond (AKA, BBB). I stopped off to replace our bean bag toss game, or corn hole, or whatever you’d like to call the game with two boards with the holes in it that you throw bean bags through. It’s a game we received as a gift a little over a year ago that we’ve had a great time playing together as a family after dinner on warm evenings in our front yard, especially during the summer. After I saw it was on its last legs (literally, one of the boards had lost three of the four legs to keep it standing up properly), I remembered BBB had a very simply designed version advertised for the summer. When I got there though, the game was sold out. In fact, not a whole lotta summer left at BBB, folks. “Back to school season,” I was told by the store’s manager. Huh?! I know summer is flying by, but come on now, back-to-school in early July?! Lame.

However, the clerk helping me was awesome. After looking around with me in-store for a few minutes to be sure the game was out of stock, she took me to a dedicated register and ordered the game to be shipped to the house for free. The best part? It was half-off AND I could use a $5 off coupon. I got the game for $10 (orig. $30). Score!

But there I was standing there with about 16 BBB coupons in my hand, and that was after using the one I did on my purchase. Yes, that’s a lot of coupons. I swear these things multiply like rabbits all stacked up together in the back of the drawer I stash them in. I’m never short on them anyway. So what to do now? How about asking the few people in line behind me if they needed any coupons. In the end, I gave about five coupons to one lady who said she’d forgotten all of hers at home, and I gave another seven to a couple of guys who had a cart full of stuff and kids and had this look on their face that pretty much was like, “There are coupons for this place?!”

You do this, too, right? I mean, because if you don’t, you’d look like a jerk standing there in the BBB line with a fistful of coupons as others go without. That just ain’t right. That and I can’t think of any better shopping karma than to help out a fellow shopper in need.

So what do you do with all of your BBB coupons, RMT’ers?

After writing this post, I resumed browsing my current issue of Real Simple magazine, and hey!, another BBB coupon. Looks as if the good karma is kicking in already.