PACIFICA, Calif. — A Regal Cinemas gift card was transferred last night to a third wallet without once being used despite still carrying a $50 value, sources hoping to one day visit a Regal location confirmed.
“There’s an AMC theater here in town, and I go there about three or four times a month — I’ve even asked them if they’d honor the Regal card, just for shits and giggles, and the girl in the booth had to call a manager,” said cardholder Omar Lynden. “If I’m being honest, I’m not sure how I’d feel without this thing around. It was in my wallet when I met my Sarah, and it was there when she broke up with me years later. It’s my one constant in life, I guess.”
The card, gifted to Lynden by his mother during the Obama administration, has been used to pick food out of teeth, fix a rocking table at a restaurant, and as a cocaine division and delivery system — but never once in exchange for goods and services.
“It’s not like I go out of my way to keep from spending it… I almost used it when I went to LA a few months back. I went to see a movie there, and when the previews started rolling and it was some rollercoaster graphics on the screen, I realized I could’ve used the card,” said Lynden. “It was a real boner move. I nudged the guy next to me and tried to explain why I was laughing, but he just told me to shut up.”
Consumer expert Terry O’Shea claimed retailers prefer that gift cards go unused and forgotten.
“The vendors already have the money — it helps their bottom line if you never come in and use it to buy merchandise,” said O’Shea. “In the case of Mr. Lynden, it was just an unfortunate mistake on the part of the generous gift giver. The oldest example of this dates back to an unused $5 Gimbel’s gift certificate from 1918 that went unused because the nearest department store to the man holding the voucher was a Sears. So, this is a tale as old as mass consumerism.”
The gift card is expected to be joined in the new wallet by a MetroCard with a remaining value of 35 cents, a Canadian $5 bill, and 10-year-old condom.