At Least I Did Not Have To Picket A Shop This Week!
Hey,
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I got up really early again this morning.
The clock has gradually come around to eight thirty, but it is still very dark outside, with such a heavy grey sky that I still need all of the house lights on in order to see properly.
Not the most cheerful of starts to the day.
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Never mind, I have had my Warburton’s Potato pancake and about three very large mugs of tea, so I am feeling fine.
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We have no plans to do anything special today and I am not expecting to see Big H up and about at any time soon.
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Yesterday we went out to get some necessary household shopping and I had to say goodbye to the new and cosy friend that Big H gave me for Christmas
My huge, ankle length, thick towelling dressing gown!
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It was an expensive buy which the saleslady assured him was fine to wash and tumble dry.
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So far so good.
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Unfortunately, I washed it for the first time a couple of days ago, at the recommended 40 degrees etc. and hung it on the bathroom door ready to snuggle into the next morning.
What did I find then?
It was just as wide as it had ever been, but it only came down to just below my knees.
It had shrunk upwards but not sideways.
As I had needed to turn up the cuffs, which had formerly just added to it’s huge and snuggly look, I now looked like a reject boxer from Rocky.
All massive and voluminous on the top half, with just my little spindly legs showing past the new shorter length.
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Luckily Big H is well trained and had kept the receipt safely in his drawer, so we called in to the designer concession in a big local department store in the Metro Centre in Gateshead, to complain about the strange shrinkage.
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The saleslady remembered him shopping for presents and happily gave him a full refund for it, along with a polite apology for his trouble in having to return there with it.
There are definitely benefits in buying from a well known maker, with a good reputation, at a large outlet.
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I cannot count the times that I have had a fight about returning items and trying to get a refund.
Sometimes you can get so frustrated that you feel like screaming, when all you get is an argument about it.
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I remember many years ago when my youngest son was a teenager.
He had developed a passion for camping and was buying lots of accessories to enhance the enjoyment of the whole outdoors experience.
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After saving up he went to buy a camping stove thing.
The salesman dissuaded him from buying the kind that he had decided on and pointed him towards a much more expensive one instead.
This was a jobbie that had a long complicated hose arrangement, supposedly safer and better etc.
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Off he went camping….only to return far sooner than intended.
The weather was not great and he had found that the stove would not work strongly enough to heat anything up.
So no hot food or drinks at all.
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As I was going into town, I offered to take the thing back to the camping store for him while he was at school.
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What an argument I got from the salesman.
He kept telling me that it was not their fault and that he could not give me a refund…and that was that….end of story!
I refused to just accept that and go away.
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This went on for over an hour, with breaks for customers to be served.
He then began saying he would ring the manager and ask him to confirm that I could not have a refund.
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This consisted of him talking on a phone at the back of the shop and then returning to say ‘No’.
In the end I thought that he was just pretending to speak to someone else to try and make me go.
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I was getting more and more annoyed, so when a customer came in I said they were stupid if they shopped in that shop because the place sold sub standard stuff and then refused a refund.
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The customer immediately left the premises.
The salesman told me that there was no way I would get a refund and I must leave the shop that minute.
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I said I was going to come back every day and stand outside the shop. I intended to tell all the customers going inside that the service and the products were a disgrace.
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He got really angry and aggressive then, so I had to leave the place.
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I felt really angry and aggressive too, so I stood outside and did exactly what I had said that I would do.
Nobody went inside after that and eventually he came out to tell me that he had spoken to the Manager again and they would make an exception and give me a refund after all.
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In the shop once more, he said that they did not have any pound notes, so I would have to take the money in change or not at all.
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I finally left the shop with a big, heavy bag full of the smallest change that he could manage to find….and it had been an expensive item!
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I did not care because I had managed to get my son a refund for the bloody thing…and I had a crashing headache by then too.
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It is amazing really, the lengths that minor injustices will drive you too.
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Hopefully today will not contain any for me….or for yourself.
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Take care.
J x
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