Finally Got Em! Think I'll Keep Em!

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I received my pair of coupons from the US Government TV Converter Box Coupon Program today. Inside the envelope, one single-sided page with two bright red plastic cards attached, each valued at $40 toward the purchase of a digital-to-analog television signal converter. On this page, a short list of participating retailers with an offer of more to be found at http://www.dtv2009.gov/ A second double-sided page, with a list of frequently asked questions, in double languages, details what telephone retailers are available with product to sell. There is also a manifest of coupon eligible converter boxes.
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As I was placing my request for the cards at the website, it occurred to me that I might preserve these cards and not redeem them. I am sure that others will do the same, perhaps for reasons different than my own.
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Why? Because in a very small sense, these plastic and paper documents represent a sea change, a bit of history at the microscopic, if not esoteric level, to a very significant element of our American recreational lifestyle that admittedly many will not even experience directly because they may already have DTV ready television receivers or more simply that they have their TVs currently plugged into the TimeWarner, the Comcast, the Verizon FIOS or the Cablevision.
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For those folks who somehow exist beyond the tentacled reach of the coaxial universe, or perhaps those, maybe older or maybe not, rugged and most likely stubborn individuals who still have their TV consoles rigged to that what we used to call a rooftop antenna, this demographic sector will be in for an interesting, actually not too interesting, view when the switchover date clocks in next year. This assumes that somehow none of these viewers saw or heard the public service announcements that have been routinely airing over the traditional media.
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The thought (certainly a Randomly Accessed Thought) to save these DTV cards has nothing to with scoring big on eBAY, but does have everything to do with a personal idiosyncrasy, some might say a quirk. For many years, I have collected random things. Many of these things I got at hamfests, many from eBAY. Here, for example, I have several bowling pins but most of them are duckpins. There are a few candlepins and two tenpins and one tough to get Canadian fivepin. I have several pounds of "Do Not Remove This Card from the Airplane" airplane cards, many which I requisitioned myself, many others through third party retrieval (friends and work associates) and even more from the world class thieves doing business over eBAY.
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But this is nothing. I do have more things but not too many more because in recent years, some of those things actually turned out to be just junk. I do have a virgin three-tiered bright yellow traffic light, complete with the original 67 Watt incandescent lamps, a wedding present from a fellow ham. But for what I do still have, I am preserving for MNOAOS Zach. He knows what I have and I continue to advise that ALL THIS will be his someday. I know he doesn't see the sentimental value now and he won't until he reaches his forties. He knows about the impending DTV thing so these cards ultimately may represent a simple, if not peculiar, memento of his teenage years.