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.
OK, it was a nice, cute story about an idiotic self-centered woman that we’ve all experienced and all want to beat, but then Christopher had to throw in this tidbit –
“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.”
…and you say I’m always throwing sex into the comments… sheez…. still, if she was hot, I would have watched her with the cucumber — I *am* a guy after all.
hahahahaha, seriously wtf was this lady thinking?
What are women ever thinking… that is probably a better question.
I’ve actually seen this happen quite a bit. At the restaurant where I work, people will finish their entire meal and then announce they did not enjoy it and ask for a refund. (I even once heard one person say, as an explanation, “It just didn’t hit the spot, you know?”) A fewyears ago I worked at a pet store. A woman came and returned a 20 pound bag of cat food with perhaps one pound remaining in it, and asked for her money back. The reason? Her cat had “decided” she didn’t like it anymore. We actually took that one back, but only because we were able to get such things refunded by the manufacturer.
I honestly don’t know what people are thinking.
It’s that annoying fucking sense of entitlement people have. There is an element of risk in every decision you make, including the products you buy. For others, they’re just fuck-o’s that want something for free even though the rest of the world has to pay for food in restaurants.
I had people do that to me when I was a waitress as well… and when they did, I’d go back to the computer and change their table number to 666 before I handed them their bill.
Christine, I could not agree more.
Why should I take responsibility for the fact that you made a mad decision in which candy bar (or sandwich, or cat food) you would buy? If it’s not rotten or defective, suck it up and deal with it. You made a mistake. A bad investment. Deal with it, try not to do it again, and move on.
I *loved* the store manager’s response to the woman with a candybar, though. “Is this a joke?” Hahaha… I need to use that next time.
Fucking Liberals
I’m referring to people with a sense of entitlement.. Christine has beat my sense of entitlement out of me….
Some people see the candy-bar as half-eaten… I prefer to see it as half-still-available-for-consumption…
At least I’m getting my money’s worth from my trainer…
“There is an element of risk in every decision you make, including the products you buy.”
OMG, Christine, I used to work for someone who was like this. It was so irritating when we’d have an office lunch and he’d ask the waitress to take $4 off of his $8 salad because the lettuce leaves were slightly wilted AFTER he’d already eaten 3/4 of it. Grrr. But this is the same guy who bargains at the 7-11: “This candy bar feels slightly melted so I think I should pay you $.50 instead of $1.00.”
Mara worked for Christopher??
“Some people see the candy-bar as half-eaten… I prefer to see it as half-still-available-for-consumption…” Umm, what about the skank and her cucumber???
Actually… it’s funny you say that, PJ. Because Christopher NEVER sends food back even if it’s the wrong order. He’s probably the world’s easiest restaurant customer… he just doesn’t like to tip. I, on the other hand, expect to get my food the way I ordered it and if you can manage to do that, you get 15% from me. In addition, if they overcharge him on the bill, he’ll just pay it anyway because he doesn’t want to waste his time dealing with them. I, on the other hand, would like to actually pay for what I ordered and will spend a half hour discussing that desire with the manager if I have to when the bill doesn’t match the price that was on the menu.
That’s because 5 minutes of my time = $10 so I save money by not arguing about such things.
Christopher seems to think he makes the same hourly wage 24 HOURS A DAY as he makes while he’s spending 8 hours at work. But this theory doesn’t quite make logical sense because (1) He doesn’t. (2) You aren’t paying yourself so you’re actually not saving money by not spending an extra 5 minutes doing something. But you are saving money by not paying the amount you were overcharged.
I understand the premise behind the whole “time is money” thing. And yes, if you make $30 an hour and it takes you 2 hours to clean your house, and you can pay someone else $15 an hour to clean your house, then yes, it makes sense to hire a maid because your time is better spent working than cleaning. But no one works 24 hours a day and if given a choice between 2 hours of cleaning on your own or 2 hours of watching t.v., you’re better off cleaning because then you saved yourself $30 and watching t.v. didn’t save or cost you anything.
aha but not only am i losing time which does = money I’m also losing time to something that is completely unenjoyable… trying to convince people they made a mistake on my big and to give me a credit. Last time I sat through this with Christine, I was in a hurry we wasted 30 minutes and didn’t get anything out of it.. it was a completely pointless exercise.
Actually, *he* didn’t get anything out of it because *I* was the one paying the bill– oh, except that free dinner he’d just eaten.
Christopher doesn’t send anything back because he knows what will happen to his food in the kitchen…
“Actually, *he* didn’t get anything out of it because *I* was the one paying the bill– oh, except that free dinner he’d just eaten.”
Dude… she buys YOU food, then pleasures you later… I bow down to your superiority.
She makes seriously bitching potato soup… I can’t even begin to tell u.