7-11 Memories

 

Back in the mid-1980's, 7-11 was a convenience store that I often visited as a child. It held the best candy, soft drinks, and food. Growing up poor, we never had much money to spend on these items.

I remember 7-11 had introduced a loyalty club for their Big Gulp sodas. Buy 6 drinks, get 1 free and pay only 5 cents for the taxes. Each Big Gulp cup, had a tiny printed circle token you had to cut out with scissors. After using tape to put 6 on the card, all you had to do was pay 5 cents to get a 'free' Big Gulp!

That summer, I discovered that when I rode around other 7-11's in Winnipeg, there was a TON of empty Big Gulp cups in the parking lot. So what's a poor young kid to do? Scoop them up! I had about 2 Big Gulps a day that summer. All my friends were doing the same thing.

It was the best summer ever. All I had to do was ride around to a variety of 7-11's, and cut out the cup markers & paste it on the card. And boy, did I ever find a lot of cups!

Eventually, the promotion ended in the early fall, never to return again. I imagine many people exploited the same thing. Back then, 7-11 used to release "special edition" Slurpee cups that were hard plastic, and had 80's bands on them.

And yes, I collected those too. After a few hundred cups, I had realized this was ridiculous, and threw them in the garbage. The tall stacks of plastic cups, virtually worthless, took up too much room. 

And honestly, those cups, even today, aren't worth much at all.

There never was another promotion like that summer. All I did when I was younger was ride that bike. And ride that over the city I did.