The email coupon said 20 percent off the ENTIRE purchases made on Wed. Nov. 22. Usually it’s just 20 percent off your most expensive item.

Shopping on the day before Thanksgiving was not on my list of essential activities. But I wanted to pick up a book I’d reserved at the library before it shut down for the long weekend. So there I was with a loaded shopping basket at the nearby Bed, Bath & Beyond nestled within a historic building on 6th Avenue.

Bed Bath and Beyond is in ground floor of this historic building on 6th Avenue in New York City.

When I clicked on the email link in my iPhone it took me to a random page on the BB&B mobile site. I clicked all over but couldn’t find the bar code for the discount. I asked two different employees on the floor and was told ‘the register clerk will know.’

I’ve had this experience before. You get rung up and then you can’t find the coupon. The register clerk rolls her eyes and sighs and the people behind you act like you’re that old lady counting out exact change from her coin purse – penny by penny. I like to have my coupon ready to go.

It was all a moot point when I turned a corner and saw how long the line was to check out. Was I really going to wait 15 minutes and then possibly not get the 20 percent discount from this MIA coupon bar code?

“OH HELL NO,” I announced to the people waiting in line as I flung my plastic shopping basket to the floor. This is not the best side of my character. I’ve been known to act up when servers are not contributing to the fun of dining out. I get lippy when merchants are not being straightforward.

I looked for someone to hear my complaint. But on the floor of the NYC BB&B, would anyone take responsibility for the vagaries of the web site? And I would have to wait in line to talk to anyone.

I stormed out of the store, muttering to myself in the way old guys do. Walking home, nose in phone like a millennial, I found the feedback section on the BB&B mobile site and composed a tart missive about “shoddy marketing.”

Well, that I was a bust, I told myself, as I closed the door behind me on my tiny studio apartment. But now at least I can have a cup of coffee and look at my library books … which I realized were in a plastic bag at the bottom of the shopping basket I had autocratically flung to the floor at BB&B.