What is the proper moral protocol for taking stuff back to the store? On Sunday I bought two compact fluorescent light bulbs and put one of them in a lamp by the front door. I hate it and have hated it since I screwed it into the lamp. It’s too freakin’ bright. I need something calmer.
The problem now is the bulb has been burning away every evening since Sunday and now it is Thursday. If I slipped it back into the box – fortunately I didn’t have to destroy the carton to get it out – I could easily take it back to the department store, no questions asked.
But could I live with myself having used up four days’ worth of gas in that little bulb knowing that the next unsuspecting owner of it would find it quitting on him or her four days earlier than it should have?
I’ve got a bit of a bad record, I’m afraid, when it comes to taking stuff back. I hate to do it but I suffer from bouts of buyer’s remorse and sometimes try to undo the wrongs my credit card have done to me. I always approach the return counter with trepidation, worried the person behind that counter will see right through me and know I am trying to blow one past her and every once in a while that person decides to grill me to see if I truly am pulling a fast one. I am so relieved when the money is safely returned or a new item given to me to replace the one I didn’t want any more.
Gutsier people, I know, have no problem with this. A friend of mine was walking through a mall one day with a friend of his when his friend suddenly turned into a random shoe store. “Where are you going?” asked my friend. His companion said, “I want to return these boots.”
However, there were a couple of small problems with this idea. First of all, he had worn the boots for about a year. And secondly, he didn’t have a receipt for the footwear – because he hadn’t bought them in that store. In fact, he had bought them in a store back home, hundreds of miles away.
So in he went and talked to the salesperson. She was pretty skeptical about this guy with no receipt for these scuffed up boots but he was so forward about it all that she finally agreed to let him exchange the boots for a new pair.
Now that takes a quality that rhymes with halls and the conscience of a shaker full of salt to pull off. I would have broken down sobbing halfway through the attempted swindle and ran out of the store.
And whereas that guy left the mall with a shiny new pair of boots, I probably would have left courtesy of a couple of big, burly mall security guys.
I think I’ll keep the light bulbs.
©2011 Jim Hagarty
