KEEP THIS COUPON?

I have 300 orange KEEP THIS COUPON tickets. They’re the ones that are the other half of those raffle tickets where every pair of tickets are numbered so they can be used for raffles. Typically the KEEP THIS COUPON portion goes to the patron/ticket holder/whatever and the TICKET part goes in to the pool for the raffle/admission whatever. The TICKET part also has the other side where someone’s name and address can be placed, for those fancy giveaways where the winner needs not be present during the drawing.
The other half of the tickets were used for admission in second to last show – it wasn’t necessary to use the KEEP THIS COUPON portion, so I just detached them all from their other half. Of course, I couldn’t let the “unused” portion go to waste (because it would have), so I kept them and they’ve been sitting at my house as I try to think about what I want to do with them.

I’ve been brainstorming with my roommate about it. She thought since I have a lot of con-tact paper, whatever I do, I can “laminate” the ticket and give to people, and maybe even punch a hole in them and make it some kind of keychain. On the back perhaps I could do a little doodle or painting, maybe a tiny poem, phrase, or maxim. There isn’t much space for much material, but I would want to make it somewhat meaningful since one is supposed to keep that coupon.

On the way to the baseball game this week, my roommate showed me this tiny piece of paper she found in her friend’s car. It was the size of the postage stamp, and it was a cheery fuchsia color with white writing.

It said,

“Dear _____,

I am here for you.

Love,
_______

It was given to my roommate's friend by his daughter, to show that she would be there for her dad. I thought it was the cutest thing ever.

I think I would want to do something like that.

But the more I think of it, the more I think I would rather do this with the actual ticket pair – so I would have the TICKET and KEEP THIS COUPON portion. That way, I could give these tickets to people, and in the moment they do need me to be there for them, they could simply fill out the TICKET portion, send it to me, and I would be at their service. I wouldn’t want to “laminate” it either. Sure, it would help preserve everything so it could last forever, but I kind of like the idea of having this sort of temporal property to it…even though I would like to believe the offer that I would be there for that person to be longstanding, it would be interesting to see when, where and how someone would actually redeem that offer, should someone actually choose to do so.

I would hope and like people to actually take it seriously and actually redeem it when it’s needed.

And for what? Would they need a ride from me? Maybe help them with their resume? A back massage? Maybe they’re hungry and they want me to make them dinner? Perhaps to borrow some money?

Where would they keep it? Would it be something that would be simply tossed aside as some kind of random trinket? Would it be kept in someone’s wallet so it could be utilized at a moment’s notice?

This project is similar to something I did one year that I called La Semana del Corazon, where I devoted a week to sharing/showing love in response to Valentine’s Day.

It sounds like fun. I think I will do it.

Except, I still would have to find a use to the separated KEEP THIS COUPON tickets…