Box Tops & Postage
When I was a boy the best deals were free. It seemed that almost weekly the makers of
products that appealed to kids, like breakfast cereal, offered free toys to
anyone who was interested. And what kid
wouldn’t be interested in free toys?
Well, while there was no price tag on the actual toy, the catch, and
with marketing there is always a catch, was that you had to send in box tops of
their product and money to cover the cost of shipping.
Box tops obviously, could only be obtained by buying the
product in the first place. Clever. My brother Mike and I were usually so anxious
to get our “free” toy that we tore the top off of the cardboard cereal boxes
well before the contents had been consumed.
As far as postage was concerned, I suspect that was actually a
money-maker for the company as well.
Postage stamps cost less than a dime, unless you wanted to pay two cents
extra to send your letter airmail. I seem
to recall that most often we had to include a quarter for postage. But, of course, there was the value of toy to
consider. I remember two of our free
toys vividly.
The first was an actual submarine that we were
promised would propel itself through the water.
I remember our excitement when our package arrived. I don’t know about Mike, but I was so excited
that it never occurred to me while we were cutting it open that the plain brown
cardboard box was pretty small. While it
was a little small to be part of the actual 7th Fleet, the little
gray plastic boat did indeed look like the submarines we had seen on television.
We ran upstairs where the bath tub was and began
filling it up while we read the directions.
The sub came with its own fuel – they were little white tablets that
looked like aspirins. We dropped two
tablets into the hole in the back by the propeller that was part of the molded
body. The fact that the propeller could
in no way actually spin should have been a clue. It wasn’t.
Although we didn’t understand why, the directions said
that we should pour a teaspoon of vinegar down the smokestack. As we did that, white foam started oozing
both out the back and from the top of the sub.
“Put it in the water!” Mike
dropped the sub in water. It immediately
rolled over on its side and floated there like a dead goldfish; the foam oozed
out for a few more seconds and then stopped.
We pushed the sub under the water.
It popped right back up to the surface.
Because it was hollow, it held trapped air. We had a submarine that wouldn’t sub. And because it was top heavy it wouldn’t sit
upright either; it immediately laid on its side as soon as we let go of
it. Growing skeptical, but undefeated,
we tried two more of the fuel tablets and another spoonful of vinegar. The sub just laid there oozing out the white
foam. Even if the foam made the sub spin
on its side we maybe would have been a little satisfied, but it just lay still
until the oozing stopped. Ten minutes
from its commissioning, the sub was placed in eternal drydock.
Our second free toy experience was two – not
one, but two blow-up plastic beach toys that were shaped like
dolphins. Our box arrived the day before
we were to leave on a camping trip – perfect timing. Our father thought it would be best just to
leave the box unopened until we got up north.
Needless to say, that Mike and I started bugging our parents about going
swimming about one minute after we had camp set up. They gave in.
We quickly changed into swimsuits, grabbed our towels, and the box with
our inflatable dolphins and ran down to the swimming beach.
I will admit that the inflatable dolphins looked the
part. And they weren’t skimpy – they were
almost as tall as us. As we blew air
into them they began to take shape. And
the shape they took was of a graceful dolphin, curved as if leaping from the
foamy ocean – cool! We finished blowing
them up and ran into the water. When we
got about waist-deep we each tried to ride our dolphin. Here’s where they began to resemble our
submarine. Because of their curved
shape, they would only lay on their side.
And even though they were probably bigger than we expected, they really
weren’t big enough to “ride”. Worse yet,
there was a seam all around the dolphins where the two sides came together that
was quite uncomfortable – even mildly painful.
It took us about one minute to grow disenchanted with them, and we
deposited them back on the beach next to our towels.
This weekend I had the privilege of baptizing two
children from the same family. This is
one of my favorite things to be able to do as an ordained deacon. The sacrament is a welcoming into God’s
family and an invitation for them to experience more and more of God’s love as
the baptized grow closer and closer to Jesus throughout their lives. And it is absolutely free – no box tops, no
postage. The only cost is saying “yes”
to receiving God’s grace, mercy and love that He so wants to give us. Now, that’s a deal!
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
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