A calculated confrontation

‘The num­bers 8 and 9 are not working.’

Don’t cause a scene.
These were the unspo­ken words I grew up with. Cul­tured women don’t lose their deco­rum and tell shop keep­ers what they think of them. They main­tain their dig­nity and they leave. They remain in con­trol.
Not this time.
There was absolutely no fore­warn­ing. Noth­ing spec­tac­u­lar that led to the demise of the said deco­rum. It was sim­ply a case of return­ing things and a string of very unhelp­ful shop assis­tants.
And here, per­haps is a lit­tle sage advice. Never return two things in one day — espe­cially if you don’t have the receipt docket with you.
The first return, or rather request for the replace­ment of a cer­tain snapped wash line tog­gle, was to a major national hard­ware shop. This hard­ware shop prides itself on its cus­tomer ser­vice and has a vari­ety of jolly assis­tants star­ring in its tele­vi­sion ads. With homely, cheery smiles, they tell the pub­lic about the won­der­ful store and lull view­ers into such a sense of false secu­rity, they can almost imag­ine these cheer­ful souls as being very close neigh­bours. I’m sure they would lend you their camper trailer if you asked nicely. They’re that con­vinc­ing.
Any­way, I went to the local warm and cheery home­ware store and explained that the very expen­sive wash line I had pur­chased just one month before had a snapped tog­gle – I showed my evi­dence – one snapped tog­gle and the line that went with it.
The ami­ca­ble faces on my tele­vi­sion set were nowhere to be seen. Instead, I was con­fronted by Attila the Hun.
She lis­tened with a bored expres­sion, barely sup­press­ing a yawn and then unhelp­fully said: ‘Oh no, you’ve got to go to the sup­plier your­self and see if they have spares, we don’t keep any parts here.’
‘But it’s got a ten year warranty…and…and…where would that be?’ I enquired, deflated.
She mut­tered a sub­urb I’d never heard of.
‘That sounds miles away,’ I retorted.
And then she gave me her best ‘stu­pid lazy woman’ look and said, ‘It’s a cou­ple of kilo­me­tres from here, hardly miles away.’
‘Oh’, I said and left with tail between my legs. One failed attempt.
My next return hap­pened to be around the cor­ner in the same delight­ful indus­trial area, to the book­store rec­om­mended for school sup­plies by every school within a 50 mile radius. In short, they had rather a monop­oly when it came to sup­ply­ing books and sta­tion­ary.
I had ordered an Eng­lish book for my son but he now informed me he no longer needed it. I would request a refund. He also had a faulty maths and sci­ence cal­cu­la­tor pur­chased soon after Christ­mas together with all his other books at the same store.
‘The num­ber 8 and 9 don’t work – please change it,’ he asked.
Again, no dreaded receipt – long thrown out with the book con­tact, post-Christmas paper and dis­carded Lego boxes. Surely the store man­ager would under­stand. Per­haps he would dis­play a lit­tle post Christ­mas cheer and grace. Apparently not.
When I told the girl at the counter I would like to replace the cal­cu­la­tor with­out a docket ‘see­ing as I’ve just bought all my other books here and am such a loyal cus­tomer – and so is the entire school of 1500 for that mat­ter!’ she was unmoved.
‘I’m sorry, but I’ll have to check with the man­ager,’ she said.
‘Sorry, he says no receipt, no replace­ment,’ she said on her return. And this is when I started to hyper­ven­ti­late. Unravel, actu­ally.
‘Could I speak to the man­ager please,’ I asked in a tight lit­tle voice.
He came over.
‘Sorry, I can’t replace it, that’s our pol­icy,’ said Mr Polit­i­cally Cor­rect.
Per­haps it was his pale, mean lit­tle piggy eyes, the slight smirk around his unfor­giv­ing mouth or the ungra­cious atti­tude that I had encoun­tered one too many times that day, but I snapped.
I snapped for all the nearly new irons that had mys­te­ri­ously stopped work­ing a year after use, the camp­ing lantern that glowed then died two days after its war­ranty expired, the nov­elty wind up camp­ing radio that never deliv­ered a sin­gle news report, the whip­per snip­per, the high pres­sure hose noz­zle that fell apart, oh I could go on and on…it was for all those episodes, and for all those of my friends, my fam­ily, the nation! Today I would speak my mind and stand up for all the lit­tle peo­ple!
‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to replace it,’ I stood my ground, adding for good mea­sure, ‘and I’m not leav­ing your shop until you do!’
‘I chal­lenge you to find a sin­gle shop that would replace an item such as this with­out a receipt,’ he con­tin­ued to argue, a lit­tle smirk still play­ing around his hor­rid lit­tle mouth.
‘But I have bought my entire stock of books from you, the entire school has bought their entire stock from you, surely you can replace one cal­cu­la­tor??’ I coun­tered.
Again the smirk.
‘How do I know you haven’t had this for a year – I’m not to know you haven’t been using it already,’ he accused.
‘Are …you…calling…me…a ….liar??’ I asked slowly, care­fully, rel­ish­ing my lit­tle defi­ant act. I was caus­ing a scene, a real scene.
‘No, I’m not sug­gest­ing that — I’m just say­ing it’s not our pol­icy to replace cal­cu­la­tors with­out a receipt,’ he said firmly.
I repeated myself slowly, as if explain­ing a rather sim­ple con­cept to a deviant.
‘The num­bers 8 and 9 are not work­ing. This is a brand new cal­cu­la­tor bought at this exact shop. I am not leav­ing until you replace it!’
Per­haps it was this mad woman caus­ing a scene in his shop. Per­haps he really did believe she would never leave. Per­haps it was the overly bright eyes that stared men­ac­ingly at him. But he said yes, he’d replace it.
And then he actu­ally did. He did what I asked. Just like that.
‘Thank you very much!’ I said, march­ing out vic­to­ri­ously, los­ing momen­tum slightly with the suc­tion slow shut­ting door. A hearty slam would have been a fit­ting end­ing.
It was only when I got to my car that I realised I had flounced out with­out the credit receipt for my unwanted book order. How clever now? There was no way I could return and demand a credit after my lit­tle alter­ca­tion.
When in cri­sis, always phone an under­stand­ing friend – prefer­ably one who has sim­i­larly and spec­tac­u­larly lost the plot.
‘Vanessa,’ I wailed, ‘you won’t believe what I’ve just done…’ And I related the entire story – feel­ing slightly remorse­ful.
‘Do you think I should go back and apol­o­gise – take him muffins or some­thing?’ The polite me asked.
‘You’re mad,’ she said, ‘He owes you an apol­ogy for call­ing you a liar! Don’t worry, I’ll get your refund for you,’ she said with­out fuss.
And she did.

Copy­right © 2009 by Lois Nicholls