Coffee and a Conversation
As Told Over Brunch is a home for intelligent discourse from the twenty-something perspective - so the stuff you gossip about over mimosas on Sunday morning or over takeout on your friend's couch when happy hour ends too early. We love chatting about our lives, whether it be the relationships we’re building (or destroying), lessons we've learned at work, struggles at school, growing pains we've felt, or even the food we’re talking over.
Sometimes I just don’t quite know what to do with my day. And then there’s other days where I know what I want to do with my day, but know that it’ll be a money-suck. Those are the times I’m notorious for pulling out my phone and browsing Groupon.
Read MoreThis is a sponsored post. All opinions are mine.
I've bought a lot of stuff off of Groupon: a pet-treat launcher, a wine bottle-shaped umbrella, concert tickets, paint night admittance, bootcamp classes, three months of a beer club and a few clothing items. I once even bought a maxi dress just to see if the "buy now," button really does buy now. It does.
Read MoreSometimes what's happening in my head isn't clearly communicated to the rest of the world. And almost all of the time when that's happening, I'm not noticing it until I get nothing but a blank stare back. Yesterday I was scheduled for a hair appointment. I had purchased the cut off groupon, where I get all my haircuts. No really, I buy all my haircuts off groupon. Anyways, I knew I wouldn't have to use my card, so I'd need cash to pay the tip. So in the small window of time between work and my appointment, I knew I needed to run to Bank of America.
But wait, what's right across the street from the ATM? Just the Target I go to at least once a week. And you know what Target sells? Those cheap, not heavy $5 mirrors, which is exactly what I need. I need a cheap, not heavy mirror to replace the one my landlords took back, but after the mirror fall of 2014, a not heavy one is key.
So my new plan, rather than the ATM is to run into Target, get the mirror and get cash back. They do do cash back, right? Fingers crossed.
I quite literally jog into Target, speed walk back to the mirror isle, and grab what appears to be the cheap mirror. Nay, it feels too heavy to be the $5 mirror, but I grab it to scan at the end of the isle just to be safe. I'm not sure what's more embarrassing, me knowing where the self scanners are in the Willow Lawn Target, or the awkward straddling that went on for me to try to get the bar code to scan.
Eventually, I got the mirror to scan, and, alas, I know my Target mirrors and this one was not one of the light $5 mirrors. I quickly put it back and track down a friendly employee.
"Do you have any more of the cheap $5 mirrors anywhere other than the mirror isle?"
"No, we only do that at the beginning of the school year, but I can go look in the back to see if we have any more."
"It's okay, I'm on a time crunch, I'll just get vitamins."
Well, if that wasn't the blankest state I've ever gotten.
And for some reason, it took me a minute to figure out why that replacement item seemed off. In my head, it made sense. Replace the mirror I need with vitamins I also need in order to get the cash back, which is what I really need at this point.
So rather than try to explain it, I just turn and speed walk to the vitamin isle. Sorry to the Target employee that probably went home and told his parents/friends about the weird chick that bought vitamins instead of a mirror. No wait, you're welcome for giving you another glorious customer service story.
So last month my roommates and I bought a Groupon for one month of deeply discounted bootcamp classes. I'd like to lose a bit of weight, so obviously we signed up and went frequently. The first week was hell, as to be expected. I walked with a limp, but not in one of those cool rappers sort of way. We were also expected to eat healthy, so my roommates and I tossed the sweets and replaced dressings with oil.
The second week was hell, but not because of the workouts. Those, I had become accustom to. It was because we were told to cut out bread. It was like asking me to move to the desert and not drink water. I couldn't fathom life without bread, but they coached us on how to replace bread with lettuce wraps, how to make pizza on non-dough, etc.
We moved forth with this, unhappily eating lettuce wraps and pretending it was comparable to bread. It never was. So in our last week, my roommate and I gave up on that task. And you know what happened?
I devoured anything carb related in my sight. Let me tell you, you have NO idea how hard life is without bread (unless you're gluten-free, to which I empathize with). I have always been a carb loader, so taking bread away basically gave me withdrawals. Now that bootcamp is over, I'm not working out anymore and I am probably eating more bread than ever to make up for those two weeks without it.
It's pretty shameful. We worked out every damn day for a month, and the moment it ends, I revert right back to my old ways. The only thing I've kept doing is drinking massive amount of water, which supposedly helps you lose weight. It's not even that I like water that much, but it's a great excuse to get out of my desk all the time.
As great as a Groupon may seem for a month of bootcamp, I would recommend not taking it, unless you can actually afford the full price, or else you set yourself up for failure. I had all these expectations and goals, but with only a month, they're not too realistic. Knowing it was only a month took away a lot of the value because I knew it was all short term changes and not enduring life changes. I'm sure I didn't lose any weight, and I'm sure I'll be out of shape again in no time.