The Power of the Business Card

Perks of aging, that’s something you don’t hear all that often, but finally you’ve been able to think of one. When one ages, one might get a business card. You mostly fill your wallet with them and don’t use them all that much, but when you were at a Chipotle a few weeks ago you saw the fish bowl from which a Chipotle employee pulls one business card a month. The person listed on the card gets ten free burritos. So, you threw a card in, this being the first time you’ve actually used the business card. Those times you’ve “used” your card to hide them in your coworker’s office don’t count. This time does. It fell into the pile, sliding up against another card. You think there is no chance of it being picked out of the bowl. You think someone else is going to win because you just got your first business card, one thousand of them to be exact, and this is the first time you put one in the fish bowl. You feel like you just wasted one card and, even though you have 999 left, you feel bad about wasting the card.

Weeks later, when you are sitting in your office by the phone no one ever calls, it rings. Only Chipotle has this number. You pick up and you are told you won ten free burritos at Chipotle. You are ecstatic. You call your wife. You march over to your coworkers’ offices and demand they share in your happy day by taking one of the ten free burritos you’ve just won off of your hands. You write down their orders. You write down yours. There are five burritos left to order. You order five more for yourself. There is room in your fridge. And, there will be room in your stomach.

You set a date and time. Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 11:30am. You will stop by and pick up your ten free burritos. You will drop one off at your wife’s work. You will drive to campus and carry in the box of burritos, feeling like Santa Clause.

It will be a good lunch hour.