Flyer conspiracy solved

One of my late grandfather's favourite tasks of the week was going through the weekly flyers. As a teenager, I didn't have the desire or time to pursue the flyers for potential deals. But my grandfather did. He'd regularly stock up on cans of beans, cans of salmon, boxes of Shreddies and anything else that he'd consider at a good price. "You'll never get it at a better price," he'd tell my grandmother while searching for bargains.

I have a love/hate relationship flyers. I go through some periods where I'll sit down for a half an hour, search through the flyers for sales and make a shopping list. Other times, I'll simply chuck the entire flyer package right into the recycling. But now I'm focused on reducing our food bill and flyers do help in planning our menu for the week. Unfortunately, I haven't seen a single flyer delivered to my door step in the last three months, so we've been looking at the flyers online. I even called the flyer company a couple of weeks before Christmas to complain. However, I never received a response. Searching for bargains on virtual flyers online is okay, but I rather have hard copies to look at.

Until a couple of weeks ago, I just assumed the reason why I wasn't receiving any flyers was because the flyer company had no delivery person. About two weeks ago, I spotted a man delivering flyers in my neighbourhood. Yesterday, I spotted him again, delivering flyers. I watched him for five minutes as he did his deliveries. I got excited when he walked up the path with a handful flyers. Yay, flyers, I thought to myself. Unfortunately, none were delivered into my mail box. Once again, I was flyer-less.

The thought of hijacking his stroller full of flyers briefly popped into my head. Instead, I thought I'd do some research and then take action. I took notice that my immediate neighbours received flyers. Very strange and odd.

This morning, I called the flyer company and got an actual live person on the phone. The problem, said the employee, wasn't on their end. It was on the Ottawa Citizen's end. In October, I started receiving a free subscription from the Citizen, in hopes I'd return as a regular subscriber. Unfortunately for them, all in the news at that time was H1N1. And as a mother of a young toddler, I was trying to reduce the amount of H1N1 coverage I was exposed to. When I asked them to cancel my subscription, they labeled me as a temporary hold, not a permanent hold. And for three months that is why I wasn't getting my papers. So I had to make a second call to the Citizen, to release the temporary hold and cancel my subscription permanently. It seems silly to do all this work in order for me to receive flyers that will eventually be dumped into my recycling box, but when you are looking for bargains, every little bit helps. Here's hoping I get my flyers next week.