The Pink Shoe Diaries

A CHRISTMAS STORY


I am a bit of an irate shopper.

I'm the first to admit it. When I go shopping I am in my own world and when that world is invaded by things like Other People and Small Children, I get a little irate. Not SO irate that I wield discount stiletto sandals like a shank (ok, ONCE), but irate enough that I tend to avoid crowds. I don't go to the mall on weekends. I don't go food shopping right after work.

Ironically, this ephemeral sense of irate-ness dissapears during the holiday season. Maybe it's just me being realistic, but crowds do not bother me this time of year. I have accepted that, while I have my shopping routines that work every other month: from Dec 1 to Dec 31 every day is a maddening day when you're shopping no matter where you go. People who are usually at work during the day take time off to get their Christmas shopping done, people who never go shopping are forced out of their houses and into the malls because of Secret Santas and Holiday Swaps.

The odds are against a shopping-crowd hating gal like myself, so I choose to rise above and when I head out into the shopping world in December, I harnass my chi and hop on the crazy train, ready to smile serenely at harried shoppers or drop a 'bow as need be.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday I had a moment that you have probably witnessed but may not have experienced first hand. An irate shopper screaming at a cashier over something ridiculous like a pair of socks she thought were supposed to be on clearance but that weren't.

You know the type.

So anyway, I was at Michael's yesterday picking up an array of Christmas decorations for my Holiday Party this weekend. Adam and I had overfilled two baskets with ornaments, garland, lights, candles, and other holiday paraphenalia. Once we had paid for everything, I noticed that I had been charged full price for one set of ornaments that were supposed to be 40% off. It was only a difference of $6 or $7, but I figured I could just hop in the Return Line and have them make an adjustment. Easy peasy, right?

Never.

The woman who slunk in ahead of me had no less than FIFTY items she was returning. They were all small, scrapbook related things, and she was full of them. She also had no less than THREE different recipets. And she said to the cashier "I need to return all this stuff but I am not sure what goes on which reciept....so you figure it out". The cashier stood there stunned, as we all would be if Satan himself appeared before us,and settled in with her horrible task. I stood quietly, resolved not to let this piss me off. I looked through my bags at my new items, I checked my cell phone, I made shopping lists in my head.

Now, the cashier is pissed. As she should be. I don't know what the protocol is for returning fifty items with three reciepts but I suspect there is more to it than throwing it all at a cashier and saying "You figure it out". And I felt like she and I were kindred spirits since I clearly had ONE item to return, in hand with my reciept, and was being made to wait because of this b-hole. So I gave her a few sympathetic looks. (Remember this, we LOOKED at each other). Ten minutes goes by and at this point I kind of want to give up, but you know once you have been waiting ten minutes you feel like "it's been this long..I may as well stick it out". So I continued to wait. Meanwhile, Miss Fifty-Things-To-Return is laughing and making jokes about how annoying it must be to be ME with my one ornament to return. I laughed too because if only she knew how badly I wanted to break one of those glass ornaments and stick it in her eye.

So a few more minutes pass and she is almost done when LO The Evilest Woman Who Ever Lived produced ANOTHER bag with things to return with a little "Ooops. Forgot these.. Haha!".

At this point I couldn't hold it in any more and I sighed a motherfucking sigh. Not all prettily like "ahhhh" but like an irate beast "UUUGGGGHHHHH". At which point the cashier says to me 'Oh you know you can return that at any register, right?"

Say WHAT?

So I have been standing here for twenty minutes, clearly with a box of ornaments in one hand and my reciept in my other hand, waiting. And you have seen me and looked at me. And you tell me NOW twenty minutes later that several other people could have helped me.

I said as much to her. VERY LOUDLY. And she was all "Well, uhhh" and I bellowed (that's right, BELLOWED) "UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE!" and stalked out of the store.

So I was overcharged for ornaments, wasted twenty minutes of my life, and verbally assaulted a nice old lady who is probably just there as holiday help and who was already having a bad day thanks to the lady in front of me.

Not too shabby for the first week of December.