In any case, my family collected these stamps and pasted them in little yellow books and green books, and every once in a while we would redeem them for something useful (a vacuum cleaner, a chafing dish, a hair dryer). Even as a young wife and mother, I seem to remember some places still giving them out and that I redeemed them for a playpen or something; and I know that if I dug deep enough in my basement today, I would still have a bag full of stamps that I never got around to pasting in the book and cashing in. What a job it was--wetting them down with a sponge, or licking them until the taste of stamps stuck with you for days.

Jewel's stamps today are self adhesive. And they are small. But they still give you a little folder (like the old-fashioned stamp-book) to stick them in. The things you can redeem them for are limited: eight different pieces of cookware from a matching set. Everything from a small frying pan for 50 stickers to a roasting pan with rack for 130 stickers. You also have to pay a penny for each, in addition to the stamps. You get a stamp for every $10 you spend.

But there's a catch. You have to have--and bring--your Jewel card. Or you don't get your stamps. I asked the manager the other night why that would be--when a check-out person wouldn't give me my stamps because I forgot my Jewel card. (You do have the option of coming back with your receipt and your card later--but you have to withstand the hassle of waiting in line at the customer service desk to do so).

"We have to tie these stamps to something," said the manager. "Otherwise, anyone could pick up a handful of stamps and...." He tsked-tsked and shook his head from side to side. All I could think was that in the olden days this wasn't something anyone worried about. No store employees would think of taking stamps and keeping them or handing them out willy nilly to friends or relatives, or heaven forbid, selling them on the black market. I guess.

Or maybe they did. And we just didn't know about it. Or maybe no one cared. It was a simpler time in history.