"Did you ever...?" (Refund & Exchange Policy)

Did you ever…?
by Melech




Did you ever wonder if the refund and exchange policy in some stores was designed to drive you to homicide?
The other day, after I finished painting the spare bedroom in my house, I went to a nearby department store to buy new drapes for the windows. When I brought them home and put them up on the curtain rods, there was something about them that didn't look right. I called my sister and asked her if she would look at them. She came over right away, took one look at them and told me that the colour was all wrong for the colour that I had painted the room. I asked her if she thought I could just make them do. She said “yes”, but only if I would finally admit that I suffered from colour dementia.

About an hour later, I was standing at the customer service desk with the drapes. The woman working behind the desk either hated her job or the entire human race or possibly both. I told her I wanted to exchange the drapes.
“No refunds or exchanges without a receipt!” she snapped.
When I handed her the receipt she said, “How do I know these drapes are from this store?”
“Your store’s name is on the receipt.” I replied.
“Well, what’s wrong with the drapes?”
“The colour isn’t right.”
“The colour looks fine to me. It’s a very nice colour.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “It’s a very nice colour and I like it, but…”


“If you like the colour, then why do you want to exchange it?”
I explained to her that although it was a very nice colour, it did not go with the colour I painted the room.
“Why don’t you just re-paint the room?” she asked. “Then you can keep the drapes and save me a lot of time and paperwork.”
“I don’t want to re-paint the room. I just finished painting it two days ago.” I explained.
She became very indignant, fixed me with a piercing look that would have paralyzed the average Bengal tiger, and said; “So now you want to blame me because you painted your room the wrong colour! Besides that, I can’t take those drapes back now because you just chewed a hole right through one of them!”

I returned home with the drapes, hung them up and because I don’t know how to sew, I patched the hole with duct tape. Later that day, my sister came over and asked why I had the same drapes and why there was duct tape on them. I explained that the tape was there to patch up the hole.
“How did they get a hole in them?” she asked.
“Well, it all started when the lady at the service desk hollered at me for painting the room the wrong colour and refusing to re-paint. I didn’t realise that I was chewing on the drapes.”
“Stop!” she said. “Don’t tell me any more. I’m either getting a headache or I’m having a stroke.”
When I asked her if she thought I should have used a hot glue gun or staples instead of duct tape, she walked out without saying “good-bye”.




“Did you ever…?” is a weekly newspaper column by Melech
©Copyright 2009 by Melech. All rights reserved.
The next column will be posted on August 28, 2009
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