121212
i recently discovered my husband Brian has
a unique way of demonstrating his dissatisfaction with bad customer service in
stores: he haphazardly moves things. a few loose green beans end up in the bulk
mushroom bin. a coupla oranges roll a mysterious few inches from the pile. at
the grocery store if he sights mold on something—say he sees a slightly aging lime, aging in brown splotches. if
he is able to eke out some bit of white mold, that is to say, leeching or
seeping through the etches that make up the outline of the brown splotches—
“EEEW!” he will exclaim, to nobody, and
therefore to everyone.
“im ALWAYS
finding moldy things here!”
Brian does this on certain days at that
certain grocery store when he chances to remember the whole fucked-up-excuse-for-a-reason
they fired me.
today he and i went to Macys to buy my
brother a birthday present. my brother lives in NYC. in ‘Dumbo’ they call it,
meaning Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. while his condo is smashing
and he does well as vice principal, i have the impression he does not buy
himself that many clothes. Brian and i found two shirts to give my brother.
plus, we found this lone yellow shirt on
the clearance rack, perfect for Brian. it had a big grizzly bear sketch on the
front of it. Brian loves all things bear. not to mention, he has amassed many a
yellow tee over the years. he went to check out. i remained on the sales floor
for a bit. when i finally wandered over to the register, i heard the sales associate
telling Brian there was ‘something wrong’ with his Macys card.
Brian said, “i paid the balance on time,
weeks ago. what does it say?”
“does it show a balance?”
“it says you owe two dollars.”
“yeah, thats the two dollars they charge
you with if you dont use your card! this
is a new month.”
true, it was July, just turned.
“the card is no good.”
“forget it, i will use cash. this is ridiculous.”
“ok,” said the associate.
the associate wore a nametag, said
‘Percey’.
Percey scanned the bear shirt.
it rang up at full price.
the bear shirt had a big red sticker on
its tag which read ‘50% off merchandise’. it was on a rack marked ‘60% off the
lowest marked price’. it was the only shirt like it in the place. all bells
sounded: it was on sale, no one could not
know as much.
Brian pointed to the big red sticker.
“dude, do you see this?”
Percey replied he didnt know ‘what kind of tag’ that was.
Percey replied he didnt know ‘what kind of tag’ that was.
“so do you want the shirt?”
“no.”
Brian was pissed.
“just these, then, please, Percey” i
piped up, “and a gift receipt, please.”
Brian gave Percey the cash but the guy
forgot to make the gift receipt.
“theres no gift receipt. what are you
doing?” Brian asked.
“i didnt know you wanted one,” shrugged Percey.
“i told you in the first place.”
i was thinking, and i just said it too, buddy,
but held my lip.
“i thot that was for the bear shirt,”
the associate said.
you have to realize the whole time i had
been standing with all of my might on one leg, leaning on crutches. i was
starting to get mad, when came the clinch that breaks the
clinches-mothers-back:
Percey put just one shirt in the bag, and handed it over.
“oh, my god!”
“we wanted the two shirts!”
“we wanted the two shirts!”
“i didnt see the second shirt,” the
sales associate looked down where the first shirt had been, and there lay the
second shirt, looking prone.
i had Percy ring up the second shirt,
and we left, fast as possible.
at least i did. i made it almost to the
jeans when i noticed Brian pull a sweater slightly
off its kilt on the rack. he moved the top three pairs of pants that sat on
one of several neat piles of folded corduroys just a few inches over, to
the left.
