Have you ever returned an item to a store? Of course you have... we've all done it at some point or another. Maybe Aunt CheapyPants got you that ugly sweater for christmas. Or you shopped for early christmas presents, only to break up with your significant other right before christmas.
Regardless of the reason, it always ends up the same. You walk to the return counter... hold up the item... and then it happens. The woman behind the counter (it's always a woman) gives you one of those stares... like she's your wife and she knows that you just slept with another woman. It's a stare full of hate and accusation.
They do this to deter customers from bringing items back for frivolous reasons. If it's broken, then everything is cool. Nothing to worry about. But what about when you just don't like the item?
In my experience, it's best to lie. Just make up a bullet proof story about why the item just isn't right for you. the more ridiculous the story, the better off you'll be.
And why am I even writing about this in the first place, you ask? Well, because this happened to me over the weekend. We have some prototypes (Ill explain them in a different blog) in 20 Staples stores in Michigan, so I've had to take a few trips out here (I'm actually typing this from DTW airport). For reasons I won't explain, I needed a 100Ft Extension cord. So I bought one in Detroit.
(Some people might say that a 100Ft cord is too long. But then again, some people are idiots.)
Anyway, at the end of my trip, I didn't want to lug this massive pile of orange spaghetti onto the plane.
...I took it back to the store, and returned it.
I walked into Lowes. Laid the item on the counter, and prepared myself for the impending verbal assault from Angry PMS woman (I'll abbreviate as APW). Here's a paraphrase of what transpired:
Me: Hi, I need to return this. I have the receipt.
APW: Is it broken? (Translate: Did you sleep with my sister?)
Me: No, but it isn't going to work right for me.
APW: Oh yeah? And what is it that you bought it for?
Me: Well, I needed to run power to 3 fog lights, 2 computers, and a refrigerator, in a field over in Grosse Pointe.
APW: What the hell were you doin that for?
Me: Well, I'm making a movie. Directing a movie, actually.
APW: You a Hollywood director huh?
Me: Sort of. Ever see Leprechaun Part 7? [shakes her head no] I didn't think so. It went straight to video. It's the latest in a horror series about an evil Leprechaun that chases after his gold in weird places like Vegas, the Hood, and Space. In this one, he was in hollywood. So we wanted to fill the movie with a lot of big stars for him to kill... but all we could get was Brian Austin Green from Beverly Hills 90210. So like I said, I'm not surprised you didn't see it.
APW: *blank stare*
Me: So can I return it?
APW: ...yeah... give me your receipt.
And so on and so forth. I returned the cord successfully, not that it mattered because I get re-imbursed for purchases on business trips.
And I'm sure that I typed the conversation much smoother than it actually happened in real life. She probably didn't believe it for a second, but didn't care enough to give me a hard time.
In conclusion, today's lesson is: Try lying to people. It's fun.
Monday, May 01, 2006
The Return Story
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3 comments:
I do it all the time when the dude at Jiffy Lube tries to suggest all these crazy services, but I can't use them now because I'm on my way to the funeral parlor because grandma died and the hearse ran out of gas so they need to bungee the coffin to the roof of my car.
I like your story better.
Did you know that there's no tamper seal on nail polish bottles? I used to buy all of the hot new shades, paint my nails, and then take them back. Whatever! Nail polish is like $4 for that teeny tiny bottle of paint, which, by the way, they don't tell you is only applicable for half the bottle. The rest gets all clumpy and sticky and...it's unpleasant and unfair I tell you! What is this, an interrogation?! Geeze!
Anyway, that was a different time, a time where I was youthful and daring, when I was a bright-eyed teenybopper with a backbone (it was last Monday). Now I'm just a defeated old maid, which explains why I have a ziploc bag filled with over twenty bottles of chunky paint in the cabinet under my bathroom sink.
Don't you judge me!!
back off everyone... she's mine!
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