Found in glove compartments, junk drawers, and the accordion folds of wallets that have not been cleaned since a previous administration. The expired coupon retains all the visual confidence of its living counterpart: the bold percentage, the cheerful border of dashes meant to suggest scissors, the fine print promising exclusions. Only the date betrays it, printed small and final, as if the manufacturer already suspected no one would check.
Its habitat is anywhere hope outlasts arithmetic. It is kept, typically, past the point of usefulness, on the theory that some cashiers are lenient and some registers do not know what month it is. Occasionally this theory is vindicated. More often the coupon is presented, examined, and returned with an apologetic shrug, its holder briefly a supplicant before a machine that has already moved on.
What distinguishes the specimen from ordinary trash is its lingering formality: it still looks official, still bears a barcode that will, if scanned, produce a small satisfying beep of rejection. There is something almost dignified in an object that continues to perform its function of looking valuable long after it has stopped being so. It asks nothing of you now except to be thrown away, and even that request goes largely unheeded.