The Half Eaten Candy Bar

Posted on September 5th, 2007 by Christopher.
Categories: Hilarious.

Dear Long’s Lady,

I want to thank you for cutting in front of me at Long’s Drug Store. I can’t begin to tell you how you made my day.
When you slipped in front of me from behind the candy bar display, you caught me a little off-guard. I noticed you didn’t appear to have any items. You only had your purse, your open wallet, and an opened Hershey’s Take5 candy bar. Oh yeah, and a very large mouthful of chocolate, peanut butter, caramel, and pretzel goodness. I came to the conclusion that you must have been really jonesin for chocolate and decided to start munching even before you had paid for it. It happens.

Longs Lady, I decided right then and there that I was going to cut you some slack. Maybe you really didn’t see me coming and didn’t intentionally cut in front of me. I decided I would immediately cease and desist cursing you under my breath.

Then, instead of pulling out one of your many credit cards (I figure you had no less than 30), you pulled out a Long’s receipt.

You were attempting to return a half-eaten chocolate bar.

The look on the cashier’s face was priceless. Surely, there must be something up with this candy bar.

“Has it gone bad,” the cashier asked?

I couldn’t see the offensive candy, but I imagined it must be squirming with maggots. I remembered hearing that old story as a kid – the one where someone was eating a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and when they looked at it after the first bite, there were maggots inside. To this day, I still break my Peanut Butter Cups in half before taking a bite.

“No. I just don’t like it,” you mumbled through a mouthful of the very candy bar you were trying to return.

When the cashier turned to the cashier beside him, and asked her advice, the look on her face was precisely the same as his. It was, to use a cliché, the classic deer-in-the-headlights look. I had a particularly nasty image of someone pulling out a gun and putting the poor cashiers out of their misery.

“Is something wrong with it,” she asked?

By this time you were clutching the candy wrapper to your chest. Still chewing, you shook your head, “I don’t like it.”

A third employee just happened to be walking by and caught the second exchange. All three cashiers were looking at each other, thoroughly confused. I was struggling to keep from totally breaking down into fits of laughter. It wasn’t so much your ridiculous request, Long’s Lady — it was the looks on their faces! They all started looking around for the manager who, lucky for us, just happened to be headed our way.

The third kid stopped the manager, and explained your chocolaty displeasure. The manager looked at you, then looked at me. (I snickering loudly at that point.) With a familiar confused (and slightly annoyed) look on his face, the manager asked the following four words to all six of us standing there:

“Is this a joke?”

I’m sorry I laughed so hard. I think the manager thought maybe it really was a joke — that we and the cashiers had put you up to it as a prank on him.

At that point you obviously decided this was one of those rare instances where you weren’t going to get what you wanted. Maybe you realized what a ridiculous fool you were being. I’m sure you would have done a better job yelling at that manager if it weren’t for all the chocolate/pretzel/caramel mixture caked in your mouth. I think your case might have been stronger if you had spit it out on the floor and “raised some hell,”. You might have even gotten your dollar back. Instead you walked out, hands in the air, presumably never to return to that awful candy store again.

You’re obviously very bored. Hubby working long hours at the bank? Running out of stuff to buy? Bummer. Since Long’s didn’t work out for you, I have some other suggestions for a fun day in the South Bay:

* Hallmark: Buy some greeting cards and promptly sign them and address the envelopes. Demand a refund because you wrote the wrong address, signed the wrong name, etc.

* Neiman Marcus/Macy’s/Nordstrom: Buy the most expensive perfume and immediately apply it.  Demand a refund because it smells like horse piss.

Bonus: Demand free soap to wash it off.

* Head across the street to the Bristol Farms and buy a big, fat cucumber. As soon as you leave the checkout lane, head back to the produce department and pleasure yourself with it. Return the cucumber for being “too bumpy.”

Really thanks. I haven’t laughed that hard in awhile…. well at least until the next day when I was caught in white trash hell.

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