Saving All Those Super Long CVS Receipts Pays Off When You Need A Mummy Costume

There are plenty of last-minute Halloween costumes to be had, but instead of ruining a perfectly good white sheet by fashioning it into a ghost, or wasting toilet paper you’ve paid your hard-earned money for, why not just use something any CVS customer has a lot of? Free paper.

Anyone who’s ever gotten a receipt at CVS knows that the dang things are longer than the Great Wall of China. They usually end up getting tossed or used as emergency gum disposal units, but one friend of Consumerist had a better plan for those lengthy coils: He saved’em all up for his mummy costume this year.

Comedian Grant Pardee Tweeted the photo evidence of his efforts and kindly gave us permission to show the world his homage to Egypt and “spooky savings” at the drug store:

“Honestly, I did not need to save up particularly long because those receipts are absurdly long and even one of them wraps pretty cleanly around,” Pardee tells Consumerist. “I just made a habit of buying a lot of shampoo and toothpaste at CVS for the past few weeks until I had enough.”

When it got down to crunch time, Pardee says he realized he’d need a few more to make the costume complete, so he started visiting the store more frequently. An observant CVS employee named Oscar picked up on this, and was confounded but supportive when Pardee told him he actually wanted more receipts.

“He said ‘Normally people are so mad about the long receipts, and you want them! This is crazy!’ ” Pardee says. “He’s a good guy, ol’ Oscar. It was good to have support on the inside.”

The best thing? He can still use those receipts to write long notes to loved ones on (perfect size for rolling up and sticking in bottles, too) or keep them on hand to collect chewed gum from those lacking a garbage can. Everybody wins.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.