Ms. Cranky had a wonderful weekend, the murky humid hot cloudy days were over for a bit and for two whole days, there were blue skies, sun and soft lilting breezes and she tooled around between her little ‘odd jobs’ getting in supplies for the house and inadvertently walked right into the Grand Opening for a new paint store, yes, paint like Ms. Cranky’s apartment sorely needs.
The Grand Opening of the paint store was with lots of people she knew from the neighborhood, complete with politicians and civic leaders, a red ribbon cutting, beautiful little children and champagne like at 11 a. m. on a Saturday morning! And, even more so, lots of little hors d'oeuvres (now there’s a term Ms. C. always has to look up for spelling!).
Cranky is trying valiantly here not to mention the handsome waiters delivering all this food and drink on trays but she can’t resist (the woman waitperson was lovely too!). And, to be so handsome so early in the day! How do they do that? The event with pleasant people, a lovely shop, funny and wonderfully short speeches, food and drink, all put Cranky in a great mood for dragging her groceries home.
When she got home, she, as always, after putting things away, went carefully through her receipt to check charges. There are many incorrect charges on receipts but Ms. Cranky (unlike some upsetting people) doesn’t like to hold up lines while she checks them in the store, so waits until she’s home. Then, sometimes it’s enough to make her cry.
There was just one mistake this time and, though Ms. Cranky does not like to think of herself as cheap because she isn’t. She, of necessity, has to be frugal. She had bought a loaf of bread, decent bread costs a lot of money these days, Cranky finds. It’s close to $5 for the healthy stuff so she always looks for the packages with the bright red $2.50 or $2.99 special labels and goes with those.
But, though she had gotten bread Saturday with the $2.99 bright red sticker on it, she was charged $4.69 for it. At first she thought it must be her mistake, she must have picked up the wrong loaf of bread but when she went into the kitchen to look, there was the big bright red $2.99 sign. C. hates taking things back at all and fears seeming a ‘bother’, but, mostly, she hates a bad attitude from a store manager when she has to take something back. It can feel like you’re the one who’s wrong, that’s how some managers make you feel
But, she couldn’t let this go, it was almost $2 and she’d rather donate it to a mariachi band on the subway!
So, in her wanderings later, she stopped back in the supermarket, showed the bread with the $2.99 sign on it and the receipt which had charged her $4.69. The manager seemed sullen (maybe, Cranky was reading into it but she doesn’t think so). Well, he certainly wasn’t pleasant, let’s put it that way. He took her things away into his office to check his books so now she felt like she was really wrong. But, the books must have checked out correctly because he came out from the office and, without a word, handed Ms. Cranky her receipt and package back, went to the cash register, pulled out the money she was owed and handed it to her with this angry look on his face (again, maybe Ms. Cranky was imagining this but she doesn’t think so, it had happened before). He did not speak to her and certainly did not offer an apology, not a word was said. Ms. Cranky, who is a sensitive soul, left the supermarket feeling like she had done something wrong, like she had charged the incorrect price.
But, as her friend Phil always says about these ‘mistakes’ on receipts --- “You know isn’t it funny that the mistake is never in favor of the customer?” Phil will make Cranky feel better about all this and she thinks too, after years of similar occurrences, though the store is ‘convenient’, she’s not going to go back there anymore. There’s gotta be an easier way, don’t you think, readers? And, a kinder way to treat a faithful customer.
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