Adam Sullivan

A hardware store in Wisconsin called Menards is the size of an aircraft carrier and smells like fresh pine lumber. I walked in to buy a snow shovel and a bag of salt, but at the register a cashier named Big Bev handed me a second strip of paper that was two feet long. "Don't lose your eleven percent rebate slip, honey," Big Bev said. I looked down at the paper. In Japan, when a store gives you a discount, they simply take the money off at the register. "You return this by mail?" I asked. "Fill out the form from the kiosk by the exit, put it in an envelope with a stamp, and mail it to Elk Mound, Wisconsin," Big Bev said. A retired carpenter behind me in line, whom Big Bev greeted as Barn-Door Bob, nodded with the solemnity of a temple elder. "Never throw away a Menards slip," Barn-Door Bob said. "That's how they test your discipline." I walked over to the green metal kiosk by the exit. Another customer in flannel, a man Barn-Door Bob called Gutter Greg, was already there scribbling on three forms with a pen chained to the counter. "First time mailing the tribute?" Gutter Greg asked without looking up. "I am trying to understand why they do not simply lower the price by eleven percent right now," I said. "Because weak men lose the receipt in their truck console," Gutter Greg said. "Only the worthy remember to buy a stamp." "And when the check comes back in six weeks?" I asked. "It's not cash, partner," Barn-Door Bob said, walking up with his cart. "It's store credit on a postcard. Which means you have to come back here to spend it." "And when you spend it, you get another eleven percent slip," Gutter Greg added. "So the cycle never ends," I said, realizing I was staring at the most brilliant feudal taxation loop ever devised in North America. "My wife calls it the Menards vortex," Barn-Door Bob said. "I came in for a paintbrush in April of nineteen ninety-eight and I have been mailing envelopes to Elk Mound ever since." "Here, take one of my stamps," Gutter Greg said, peeling a Forever flag stamp from a booklet in his shirt pocket and pressing it onto my envelope. "I cannot take your postage," I said. "Call it an initiation fee, samurai," Gutter Greg said, clapping my shoulder. "Welcome to the Midwest." Six weeks later, a green postcard arrived in my mailbox for four dollars and eighteen cents. I drove straight back to Menards, bought a box of wood screws I did not need, and received a new rebate slip for forty-six cents that is currently sitting on my kitchen table waiting for a stamp.