Groupon Shmoupon

Some people are professionals when it comes to saving money. My Mother is one of the best, and a bit of a traditionalist in this area. She has a scissor with her at all times, and typically goes through the Sunday paper and all its circulars like a farmer cutting her way through overgrown corn stalks with a machete.

Yesterday, she told me about one of her greatest all time triumphs. This win came at the expense of Minute Maid Orange Juice. I came over for a visit on Saturday and craved a little OJ. She asked me to guess how much she paid. I saw that she had 4 cartons in the refrigerator, so it must have been pretty impressive. Before I could even take a stab at it, she offered the answer.

"First, it was on sale at 50% off, then I had a coupon, and Shop Rite was offering triple coupons, so in the end, it cost me 19 cents."

Holy crap. 19 cents?!! Did that include tax? Did she also get an employee discount? Is she a closet shoplifter?

I looked around the room to see if anything had changed. After all, at that price, I could have been transported back to 1951. (I saw "Hot Tub Time Machine", so anything is possible.) I did a quick search, but everything seemed to be in order. Obama was still President and the Mets still sucked.

After hearing this, I wanted to tell my Mother all about Groupon, but it was fruitless. First of all, "Groupon", sounds like something that could be found during your colonoscopy. Secondly, what fun would my Mom have with downloadable coupons? "You go to the computer and you don't cut anything out? You have to use a printer? I'd rather pay full price."

Groupon really takes the fun out of the hunt, doesn't it? All the coupons are in one place. Groupon would singlehandedly remove the need for her regular scavenger mission of searching through a series of local newspapers, circulars, Valpaks, and more to find incredible savings at prices we haven't seen since the Korean War.

A few hours later, while watching television, I saw a commercial for Apple where they were touting all that can be done with iPhone apps. One of the highlights was scanning a bar code at check out with your iPhone to receive a discount. I had to tread lighlty here. This could bring my Mother into the future much too quickly and run the risk of injury.

But I knew better. She wasn't going to change her strategy now. Not after all these years of success. The most amazing part of her coupon finding accumen was not finding the discounts. It's actually making the time to drive to each store for the savings. She has to map out her route in advance. 50% off milk...one mile away(take the backroads) Buy one, get one free toothpaste...two miles (make the first U-turn). Triple coupons...3 miles.(take the highway) All this work, and without a Garmin. This represented real skill. One woman against the elements all in the name of saving cash.

But I couldn't help but think. With the current price of gas, could all this driving reallybe worth it?

It is when you can buy orange juice for 19 cents. Long live the traditional coupon and those who collect them like stamps and baseball cards.

Quiet Please

I am a commuter. But not just any commuter. I'm a New Jersey Transit commuter, which places me in a very unique category. I ride the train to and from work each day, and both trips are relatively short. At least on paper, anyway. The schedule calls for 42 minutes, but you can always tack on an additional 5-10 for a variety of different reasons:

Rain, snow, fallen trees, Amtrak delays, electrical outages, police actions, and of course, the occasional suicide on the tracks.

If this isn't reason enough to make you decide to walk to work, they periodically sting you with multi-year fare hikes. This usually affects riders like a case of bronchitis, particularly when they come to the realization that they'e now paying more money for less than adequate service. Needless to say, the average rider has ample reason to be disgruntled. I even have one friend that forms a personal protest when trains are running behind schedule. When the conductor walks by to check tickets, he removes his monthly pass from his wallet in Super Slo-Mo, giving the delayed train a taste of its own medicine.

So recognizing that they needed a leadership change, NJ Transit lept into action and hired the former President of Amtrak, another dying railroad. In fact, Amtrak hasn't been profitable for years, if ever, and has been fully subsidized by the Federal Government just to merely stay in business. Wow. It sounds like a quality hire to me. I'd like to meet the headhunter.

Nonetheless, I was optimistic. I thought that if we brought in an Amtrak guy, maybe NJ Transit would adopt some of their practices. Like a food car. Or something exciting like a car with blackjack tables, roulette wheels, and poker tables. (A man can dream, can't he?) The new NJ Transit President didn't sit still. He mandated an order for double-decker trains to alleviate some of the crowding, but then built a multi-million dollar transfer station in Secaucus where residents of Bergen County and Central New Jersey can jump on. Now the bi-level train is just as crowded as when it was a single level. One step forward, two steps back.

But if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. The latest "innovation" is the creation of "The Quiet Car." Just what is the Quiet Car? Well, some genius decided that if they can't reduce fares, get the trains to Penn Station on time, or reduce crowding, the least they could do was provide 2 cars with complete silence. (the first and the last) To make this even easier for commuters with mapping issues, they converted the first and last cars on the train to Quiet Cars.

Is this supposed to make up for everything? Is this the NJ Transit version of a dozen roses after you screwed up? They claimed that people asked for this. What people? Perhaps it was the people from NJ Transit. They sat in a meeting and brainstormed a way to reduce the number of customer complaints. Create cars where no one can talk. Brilliant! The conductors love going into these cars, especially on a delayed rush hour train.

What makes this even more shortsighted is that a majority of the entire train has now been relegated to complete silence. This is thanks to the many Blackberrys, Android phones, iPhones, iPads, Kindles, and Nooks that have suddenly appeared. Who has time to talk to anyone, when you could check your Facebook account, text your kids, read a book or play Angry Birds?

What they should do is put all the talkers in one or two cars. Coversationalists are the new minority, so NJ Transit shoud give them a place to vent. It would be pretty noisy, but a great party atmosphere.

NJ Transit has always been in the wrong business. Commuter transportation is not their area of expertise. Maybe one day, the Amtrak President will figure it out, and the trains will only operate as party rentals.

And the noisier, the better.