Post by Lantlas on Feb 6, 2007 23:50:04 GMT -5
"You Need Your Receipt"
“Do you ever wonder why we spend all our time here?” Brian asked.
“You mean besides the fact that we work here?” As Brian nodded, I really began to ponder that question. He and I were definitely not on the low end of test scores for college, but somehow we both had managed to screw it up. Well, at least I had. I have no idea what happened with his, nor did I really intend to ask. “I suppose I’m working here because it’s something that I don’t mind doing until I can do what I really want to do with my life.”
“What is it you want to do, Al?”
“That’s easy,” I responded. “I want to be a writer, and if possible, I’d love to write my own movie and play the title role.”
“Craziness, bro,” Brian laughed. “About what would you write a movie? Working retail?”
“Wouldn’t be a bad idea,” I replied. “Maybe some of these stories would go to good use.” I paused for a few seconds, and looked at Brian, noticing he was spacing away from his hot dog and Orange Julius. “What’s going on, bro?”
“It’s nothing.”
“No, come on,” I urged. “What is it?”
“It’s just… I don’t know what I want to do. I feel like I just exist through each day, without ever striving towards an important goal. Everyone around me seems to know what they want, or have someone to help them find it. Me… I just…”
“Feel like there’s got to be more to life than this?”
“Yeah…”
We both jumped in surprise as a third body joined us at our table. Chris sat down in the seat with the back facing the table, and sat his chin on the edge. “So serious,” he mocked. “And so passes the sand in the hour glass, and…” Chris’s eyes drifted behind us. “And it’s the mother of my children!” Brian and I turned and saw a JCPenny’s girl, one we’d never seen before. She was a brunette, and she was wearing a blue skirt. “She’s not wearing a black dress… and she’s still… so… angelic!”
“Down boy,” Brian laughed.
“Come on guys,” Chris continued, “the light shining in from the ceiling windows just makes it appear like she’s an angel coming down from the heavens above…” Brian and I glanced at each other, and tried not to smirk. We thought he was done, but he started to hold his beating heart with his right hand and breathe heavier.
“So Al,” Brian turned to me again, the smirk inescapably clear.
“Yes Brian?”
“Did you ever see that movie, ‘The Notebook’?”
“Why, yes… Yes I have.”
“Did you ever see the sequel, Al?”
“Why no, no I did not Brian. Was it intimate and beautiful like the original?”
“Oh quite,” Brian continued. “It was the story of this boy who worked at a food stand in the mall… Let’s just say for argument’s sake, the Orange Julius stand. He falls in love with one of the untouchable beings of the central Pennsylvania mall, or as we might call them, the JCPenny’s girls.”
“You don’t say,” I sarcastically remarked, still in that pseudo-curious tone. “What ever did happen to this boy?”
“Actually, a different director took over production at this point… The girl was kidnapped by something resembling a giant tree with arms, and the only thing that the boy could do… was serve his Orange Julius… WHERE IT COUNTS! The Notebook II: Armed, Emo, and Kinda Dangerous!”
“Oh,” I replied, “I thought it was the Notebook II: Electric Boogaloo… You know, it’s electric! Boogie-woogie-oogie!”
“He’s back and he’s… gonna blog about it!” Brian announced in his movie previews guy voice imitation.
“Coming this summer,” I added for effect.
“I saw that movie,” Chris intruded. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying, even though we were joking about him. “It was the funniest thing though… during the previews, I saw this PG-flick about these two guys who work in a mall. One worked at a movie store, and the other at a game store, and I thought… hmmm… do I know anyone like that?”
“So what’s the movie about?” I asked.
“I don’t know, hell if I’m going to see it.”
Brian and I both clapped. “Good form, young squall,” Brian laughed.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Chris whispered, eyeing the new trainee at JCPenny’s once again, “I have a date with destiny.”
“Good luck with that, buddy!”
We watched Chris disappear into the JCPenny’s, and realized we had a very small amount of time left in our lunch breaks. For some reason, I felt the urge to be random.
“Say Brian?”
“Yes, Al?”
“If you could be a fruit, what fruit would you be and why?”
“Cherries,” he smirked, “because they’re always on top!” He giggled a bit to himself, as did I. “What about you?”
“I’d be a fruit fly,” I snickered, “just so I could be on the wall when that boy reaches the forbidden zone.”
“Silly Chris,” Brian added.
“Indeed.”
“But what if he succeeds?” I inquired.
We both stared at the doorway for a few seconds. “Nah.”
…
Returning to the store, it was time to let Caroline go on her break. The manager would have his next, although I’m not sure from what he’d be taking a break, given that he’d spent all but fifteen minutes in the back anyway. Caroline was getting quite a line, so I jumped on the other register to try to bring it down before she left. The next customer in line was making an exchange… Two movies he’d bought for the new edition of a classic. “Very nice choice,” I added, complimenting his selection of a very nice ten-year-anniversary edition of an awesome flick.
“What’s the difference between the original and this one?” he asked.
I paused for a moment. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know… considering I haven’t seen one DVD anymore that’s not a collector’s edition or a special edition. How special can it be if they’re all special editions?”
“True that,” he responded.
I continued with the return/exchange form, writing down the receipt details and simultaneously wishing that more people actually remembered these handy little things instead of just leaving them on the counter… Couldn’t tell us they didn’t want it, or ask us to just throw it away, nope… just left it there, cause we’re paid to pick up after them as well. Finally, I scanned the returned DVDs, then the new one. There was a small difference, I assumed for tax reasons.
“Okay, not too bad,” I informed, “just need fifty-nine cents.”
“For what?”
“That’s the price difference between the two you returned and the one you’re taking out.”
“Why the hell should I have to pay fifty-nine cents? I’m making an exchange!”
Great, and here I thought this was going to be a cool customer. “You see, these two DVDs rang up at a total of 27.42. After taxes, the DVD for which you’re exchanging comes to a total of 28.01. Therefore, the difference is fifty-nine cents.”
He took change out of his pocket and threw it at me and stormed out of the store with his DVD. I sat there, baffled, as I’d just been struck with a flying quarter. Several of the customers were in awe as well.
“I thought he was going to jump the counter over fifty-nine cents,” one of them mused.
“So did I,” I muttered, still angered over the issue.
“Hey Alex,” I heard my boss’s voice, and immediately tensed up just a little more.
“Yes?” I answered in my fakest of optimistic tones.
“You dropped some change on the floor.”
“Thanks, boss,” I steamed as he let Caroline leave for her break…
…
“So you’re returning this reserve slip?” Brian asked his current customer.
“Yes.”
“Okay, well we can give you store credit, or cash if you have the receipt.”
“Okay, that’s fine.”
Brian put through the transaction, and handed the lady her slip for the store credit. The lady looked at the piece of paper, then up at Brian. “I wanted cash.”
“You said it was all right,” Brian responded.
“No I didn’t,” she argued. “I said I wanted cash.”
“You need the receipt to get a cash refund,” Brian re-explained. “Do you have the receipt?”
“No.”
“Then all we can give you is a store credit.”
The lady became severely indignant. “I’m gonna get my husband. He’s a cop, he’ll straighten this out!”
She stormed out of the store, and Brian, as well as the manager of the store, watched her move. Brian turned to his manager. “Did you not hear her agree to what I said?”
“I did.”
“So I’m not just going insane from having to repeat myself so many times today?”
“You’re not.”
“Good,” Brian sighed, as he pulled out his cell phone and began typing away with his left thumb.
“Texting Al about this one?”
“Yes, he’ll love this,” he replied.
“Did you ever think of just going down for a few minutes and telling him the story?” the manager asked. “You know, like taking a smoke break?”
“But I don’t smoke,” Brian calmly answered.
“I know, I’m just saying…”
“What can I say?” Brian interrupted. “I paid for the minutes, I might as well use them.”
“But don’t you hate your cell phone?”
“Yes… but I enjoy instant messaging, and at the current time, this is the closest I get.”
“You’re a weird kid,” the manager noted.
“Affirmative.”
The phone rang, and Brian had a pretty good idea who it was. “Thank you for calling…”
The loud voice on the other end caused Brian to pull his ear away from the phone. A deep, bellowing yell protruded through the receiver, and though Brian couldn’t make out all the words, he had a pretty good idea what they were. “ Sir,” he finally voiced, “we explained to her that she couldn’t get a cash refund without the receipt.” Several more expletives followed that response. “Sir, it’s the store policy, I can’t do anything about it. I told her, she agreed to it, and the transaction set forth as such.”
“So you’re calling my wife a liar now?” he demanded.
“Sir, I didn’t imply any such thing.”
“Yes you did, you said she was a liar cause you be sayin’ that she agreed to this and she didn’t!”
“She did!”
Several more expletives later, the manager had finally had enough, and picked up the other phone. “If you want cash, bring in the receipt!” He then hung up the phone and growled slightly. Brian stared in awe, as that was easily the coolest thing he’d ever seen a manager do.
“Wow, um… thanks, Tony,” Brian stated gratuitously.
“You don’t get paid enough to deal with that,” he responded, still irritated.
Brian nodded in agreement. “That I don’t,” he reiterated. “That I don’t.”
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“Do you ever wonder why we spend all our time here?” Brian asked.
“You mean besides the fact that we work here?” As Brian nodded, I really began to ponder that question. He and I were definitely not on the low end of test scores for college, but somehow we both had managed to screw it up. Well, at least I had. I have no idea what happened with his, nor did I really intend to ask. “I suppose I’m working here because it’s something that I don’t mind doing until I can do what I really want to do with my life.”
“What is it you want to do, Al?”
“That’s easy,” I responded. “I want to be a writer, and if possible, I’d love to write my own movie and play the title role.”
“Craziness, bro,” Brian laughed. “About what would you write a movie? Working retail?”
“Wouldn’t be a bad idea,” I replied. “Maybe some of these stories would go to good use.” I paused for a few seconds, and looked at Brian, noticing he was spacing away from his hot dog and Orange Julius. “What’s going on, bro?”
“It’s nothing.”
“No, come on,” I urged. “What is it?”
“It’s just… I don’t know what I want to do. I feel like I just exist through each day, without ever striving towards an important goal. Everyone around me seems to know what they want, or have someone to help them find it. Me… I just…”
“Feel like there’s got to be more to life than this?”
“Yeah…”
We both jumped in surprise as a third body joined us at our table. Chris sat down in the seat with the back facing the table, and sat his chin on the edge. “So serious,” he mocked. “And so passes the sand in the hour glass, and…” Chris’s eyes drifted behind us. “And it’s the mother of my children!” Brian and I turned and saw a JCPenny’s girl, one we’d never seen before. She was a brunette, and she was wearing a blue skirt. “She’s not wearing a black dress… and she’s still… so… angelic!”
“Down boy,” Brian laughed.
“Come on guys,” Chris continued, “the light shining in from the ceiling windows just makes it appear like she’s an angel coming down from the heavens above…” Brian and I glanced at each other, and tried not to smirk. We thought he was done, but he started to hold his beating heart with his right hand and breathe heavier.
“So Al,” Brian turned to me again, the smirk inescapably clear.
“Yes Brian?”
“Did you ever see that movie, ‘The Notebook’?”
“Why, yes… Yes I have.”
“Did you ever see the sequel, Al?”
“Why no, no I did not Brian. Was it intimate and beautiful like the original?”
“Oh quite,” Brian continued. “It was the story of this boy who worked at a food stand in the mall… Let’s just say for argument’s sake, the Orange Julius stand. He falls in love with one of the untouchable beings of the central Pennsylvania mall, or as we might call them, the JCPenny’s girls.”
“You don’t say,” I sarcastically remarked, still in that pseudo-curious tone. “What ever did happen to this boy?”
“Actually, a different director took over production at this point… The girl was kidnapped by something resembling a giant tree with arms, and the only thing that the boy could do… was serve his Orange Julius… WHERE IT COUNTS! The Notebook II: Armed, Emo, and Kinda Dangerous!”
“Oh,” I replied, “I thought it was the Notebook II: Electric Boogaloo… You know, it’s electric! Boogie-woogie-oogie!”
“He’s back and he’s… gonna blog about it!” Brian announced in his movie previews guy voice imitation.
“Coming this summer,” I added for effect.
“I saw that movie,” Chris intruded. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying, even though we were joking about him. “It was the funniest thing though… during the previews, I saw this PG-flick about these two guys who work in a mall. One worked at a movie store, and the other at a game store, and I thought… hmmm… do I know anyone like that?”
“So what’s the movie about?” I asked.
“I don’t know, hell if I’m going to see it.”
Brian and I both clapped. “Good form, young squall,” Brian laughed.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Chris whispered, eyeing the new trainee at JCPenny’s once again, “I have a date with destiny.”
“Good luck with that, buddy!”
We watched Chris disappear into the JCPenny’s, and realized we had a very small amount of time left in our lunch breaks. For some reason, I felt the urge to be random.
“Say Brian?”
“Yes, Al?”
“If you could be a fruit, what fruit would you be and why?”
“Cherries,” he smirked, “because they’re always on top!” He giggled a bit to himself, as did I. “What about you?”
“I’d be a fruit fly,” I snickered, “just so I could be on the wall when that boy reaches the forbidden zone.”
“Silly Chris,” Brian added.
“Indeed.”
“But what if he succeeds?” I inquired.
We both stared at the doorway for a few seconds. “Nah.”
…
Returning to the store, it was time to let Caroline go on her break. The manager would have his next, although I’m not sure from what he’d be taking a break, given that he’d spent all but fifteen minutes in the back anyway. Caroline was getting quite a line, so I jumped on the other register to try to bring it down before she left. The next customer in line was making an exchange… Two movies he’d bought for the new edition of a classic. “Very nice choice,” I added, complimenting his selection of a very nice ten-year-anniversary edition of an awesome flick.
“What’s the difference between the original and this one?” he asked.
I paused for a moment. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know… considering I haven’t seen one DVD anymore that’s not a collector’s edition or a special edition. How special can it be if they’re all special editions?”
“True that,” he responded.
I continued with the return/exchange form, writing down the receipt details and simultaneously wishing that more people actually remembered these handy little things instead of just leaving them on the counter… Couldn’t tell us they didn’t want it, or ask us to just throw it away, nope… just left it there, cause we’re paid to pick up after them as well. Finally, I scanned the returned DVDs, then the new one. There was a small difference, I assumed for tax reasons.
“Okay, not too bad,” I informed, “just need fifty-nine cents.”
“For what?”
“That’s the price difference between the two you returned and the one you’re taking out.”
“Why the hell should I have to pay fifty-nine cents? I’m making an exchange!”
Great, and here I thought this was going to be a cool customer. “You see, these two DVDs rang up at a total of 27.42. After taxes, the DVD for which you’re exchanging comes to a total of 28.01. Therefore, the difference is fifty-nine cents.”
He took change out of his pocket and threw it at me and stormed out of the store with his DVD. I sat there, baffled, as I’d just been struck with a flying quarter. Several of the customers were in awe as well.
“I thought he was going to jump the counter over fifty-nine cents,” one of them mused.
“So did I,” I muttered, still angered over the issue.
“Hey Alex,” I heard my boss’s voice, and immediately tensed up just a little more.
“Yes?” I answered in my fakest of optimistic tones.
“You dropped some change on the floor.”
“Thanks, boss,” I steamed as he let Caroline leave for her break…
…
“So you’re returning this reserve slip?” Brian asked his current customer.
“Yes.”
“Okay, well we can give you store credit, or cash if you have the receipt.”
“Okay, that’s fine.”
Brian put through the transaction, and handed the lady her slip for the store credit. The lady looked at the piece of paper, then up at Brian. “I wanted cash.”
“You said it was all right,” Brian responded.
“No I didn’t,” she argued. “I said I wanted cash.”
“You need the receipt to get a cash refund,” Brian re-explained. “Do you have the receipt?”
“No.”
“Then all we can give you is a store credit.”
The lady became severely indignant. “I’m gonna get my husband. He’s a cop, he’ll straighten this out!”
She stormed out of the store, and Brian, as well as the manager of the store, watched her move. Brian turned to his manager. “Did you not hear her agree to what I said?”
“I did.”
“So I’m not just going insane from having to repeat myself so many times today?”
“You’re not.”
“Good,” Brian sighed, as he pulled out his cell phone and began typing away with his left thumb.
“Texting Al about this one?”
“Yes, he’ll love this,” he replied.
“Did you ever think of just going down for a few minutes and telling him the story?” the manager asked. “You know, like taking a smoke break?”
“But I don’t smoke,” Brian calmly answered.
“I know, I’m just saying…”
“What can I say?” Brian interrupted. “I paid for the minutes, I might as well use them.”
“But don’t you hate your cell phone?”
“Yes… but I enjoy instant messaging, and at the current time, this is the closest I get.”
“You’re a weird kid,” the manager noted.
“Affirmative.”
The phone rang, and Brian had a pretty good idea who it was. “Thank you for calling…”
The loud voice on the other end caused Brian to pull his ear away from the phone. A deep, bellowing yell protruded through the receiver, and though Brian couldn’t make out all the words, he had a pretty good idea what they were. “ Sir,” he finally voiced, “we explained to her that she couldn’t get a cash refund without the receipt.” Several more expletives followed that response. “Sir, it’s the store policy, I can’t do anything about it. I told her, she agreed to it, and the transaction set forth as such.”
“So you’re calling my wife a liar now?” he demanded.
“Sir, I didn’t imply any such thing.”
“Yes you did, you said she was a liar cause you be sayin’ that she agreed to this and she didn’t!”
“She did!”
Several more expletives later, the manager had finally had enough, and picked up the other phone. “If you want cash, bring in the receipt!” He then hung up the phone and growled slightly. Brian stared in awe, as that was easily the coolest thing he’d ever seen a manager do.
“Wow, um… thanks, Tony,” Brian stated gratuitously.
“You don’t get paid enough to deal with that,” he responded, still irritated.
Brian nodded in agreement. “That I don’t,” he reiterated. “That I don’t.”
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