January 12th

Hi, it’s Christina –

Good Morning! Yesterday, Dani and two of her friends wanted to go to the mall; so, because I needed to exchange a few gifts, I agreed to take them, even though I usually avoid the mall at all costs. Yes, I will admit, I am not your average female. I hate going to the mall. There are way too many people, and a majority of those people, for reasons I cannot fathom, are in a bad mood. Unfortunately, like yesterday, at times, the mall is unavoidable.

I said goodbye to the girls and went off in my own direction. I get to the first store, am waited on by a very sweet woman, accomplish what I set out to do with no muss or fuss, and leave the store with my new purchases feeling positive. One task accomplished, one to go.

Next I'm off to one of the cornerstone stores to exchange the vest my husband’s customer gave him for one in a larger size. I head to the men’s department, and it is an absolute zoo. My positive feeling begins to fade. Since the line at the register is at least ten deep, I circulate through the department to try and locate another vest in the hope of being able to simply do an even exchange and save some time. Not only can I not find a vest in his size, I cannot locate the section which houses the brand of vest at all.

On a sigh, I trudge back to the line at the register and wait my turn. After fifteen minutes, it was my turn. I hand the lady the vest, tell her it was a gift and I need it in a bigger size. She punches it into her computer and tells me there is one left in the store. Yeah! Where is it? She has no clue. What? How can you not know where the IZOD section of YOUR department is? I’m sorry, but when I worked retail I knew where every – yes, I am not kidding – every piece of merchandise was in MY department, plus the general area where things were kept in most of the other departments.

So now the lady has the vest, and I have to leave the line and go hunting…again. My luck wasn’t any better the second time around, so I go back to the register. The lady click, click, clicks again, then says when the computer shows one, it usually means there really isn’t any left. Seriously? You couldn’t have told me that fifteen minutes ago? But, she could check and see if there are any in the distribution center. OK, good, that’s fine, ship it to my house. There are none available in the color I have. OK, no big deal, we can pick another color.

“Black?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Navy?”

“None of those available either.”

“How about you tell me what colors ARE available in my husband’s size?”

“Sorry, the computer doesn’t work like that, but I can try.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WHAT WINGNUT CAME UP WITH THAT PROGRAM??

“Neon Orange?”

“No, I don’t think my husband would appreciate looking like an Oompa Loompa.”

“Red?”

“Yeah, a giant tomato isn’t much better.”

“Charcoal?”

“YES! Charcoal would be fine.”

“Very good. Just to confirm we are ordering a 2X vest in red and…”

“NO NOT RED, Charcoal.”

“Oh, I’m very sorry, let me start over…”

At this point, I am trying very hard not to scream, but I just smile and give the lady all of the shipping information.

Then she says, “that will be $19.95.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? "It’s not my fault your store doesn’t have the item in stock, why should I be charged to have it shipped?"

“There’s a shipping fee for all items under $50.”

“The original price of the item is well over $50.”

“I’m sorry, the item is now on sale and is less than $50.”

The heck with it, I’m done. "Just give me a credit and my husband can come back himself and pick something."

“The credit will be $23.95.”

“On a $98 vest? Forget it. Just give me the vest back. It will be easier to get him to lose ten pounds so the dang thing fits better.”

Now I’m twitching. I shove the vest back into the bag and start to leave, but then I think to myself – no this isn’t right, and this surly was not the policy when I was a manager in this store – so I head to where customer service used to be. Well, it’s not there anymore, but I did find a manager – Jen – and explained to her what happened. She said, “No big deal, I’ll override the shipping and return the item for you.” She had to get another associate to actually ring the transaction so she could do the override, but she got everything done. So my husband’s new vest is being delivered to the house, and somehow I ended up with a $7 credit on a gift card to boot.

So, can you see why I avoid the mall? For the most part, this is par for the course whenever I go there.

I had such a headache by the time I got home, I popped two aspirin and went to lay down for a little while before I had to make dinner. Guess what? I didn’t wake up until one in the morning! I went to the bathroom, got a drink and then went back to bed. I can’t remember the last time that happened. I guess the body gets to the point when it has had enough and then simply shuts down. I have been running full steam for the past several weeks, and have not been sleeping a whole heck of a lot. Well, after thirteen hours of sleep, I cannot say I’m not well rested!

This was another really long blog, so we’ll do the writing challenge tomorrow. I wish you all a wonderful day & happy writing!