Last week I purchased a toilet-seat lid cover.

I hadn’t taken the receipt out of the bag since the sales clerk put it in.

I’d pulled out the lid cover, took the cardboard insert out, tried it on the toilet seat and it didn’t fit no matter how hard I tried to force it.
Bummer….and I shoved it back in the bag.
It was the right color, but the wrong size.
I needed an exchange.

Sometimes those exchange lines are so long I feel like just tossing the item in the trash and forgetting about it.
Have you ever seen the exchange line at Costco?
It scares me.
If I ever need to exchange anything at Costco, I’m packin’ a lunch and bringing a lawn chair and book.

There was no line at this particular store.
Refund gal was friendly and seemed anxious to help me.
I opened the bag and gave her the item…..one toilet-seat lid cover.
I dug for the receipt at the bottom of the bag and handed it to her.

She began punching in numbers, letters, codes whatever, in her machine until she informed me that my receipt said it was for a RUG, so where was the rug and why was I giving her a toilet-seat lid cover?

I told her I found that very strange as I was sure that was the receipt I’d been given upon purchase.
I hadn’t taken it out of the bag since I purchased it and, more importantly, I hadn’t bought a rug!

“Nope,” she said, “the receipt says RUG.”

“Well then,” I told her, “call it a rug, I don’t care.
Just give me the credit to my account please.”

“But it’s not a rug.” she told me.

“I know that.” I told her. “I’m the one that bought it, it’s a lid cover.”

I guess this was too hard for her to handle, it called for an investigation.

She pushed a little button attached to the collar of her blouse and began speaking into it…..in code…..calling for help I presumed.

The collar didn’t answer her but soon an obvious decision maker appeared and strutted to her side ready for war.

I wondered how many people were going to come to her aid, look at the toilet lid cover and tell me the receipt said RUG?
It didn’t matter to me.
I wasn’t leaving without the refund.

I leaned over the counter, eye to eye contact with decision maker trying to make a point.

“This is the receipt YOUR store clerk put in THIS bag with THIS lid cover. What else do you need?”

“Numbers” she said, “I need to punch in numbers.”

Well of course, I thought…………NUMBERS!!!
It’s not good enough that you’re actually holding a toilet seat lid cover in your hands and can see that it’s not a rug….no, that won’t work, you’d need a working brain for that.
You need numbers to feed your machine.

Once more I dug in the bag and pulled out the cardboard that had been attached to the lid cover and handed it to her.

It said, by the way……….LID COVER!

Refund Gal began punching in the bar code numbers off the cardboard with decision maker standing at her side and low and behold the machine spit out a receipt.

“There we go,” she said with the refund receipt in her hands.

“NO, there we DON’T go,” I responded.
“I’d like you to read to me what the receipt calls this item I returned to you under the name of Lid Cover only to find out it was really a rug!

Refund girl held the receipt up and proudly and LOUDLY said………..”RUG!”

“Well, no wonder it didn’t fit the toilet, the lid is a RUG, silly me!”

“OK, if this is a rug, this little round thing….where do you put a rug like this?”

WHY was I even bothering with this woman?

“Well, you could put it on top the toilet-seat lid,” was her wise-ass reply.

“So, it’s a toilet seat lid rug?”

Refund Gal smiled a smart-ass smile…..you know the kind of smile I’m talking about….tight lipped and on purpose phoney.
Using no words, the smile said it all…..get outta here you crazy beotch.

I smiled back, tight lipped and even more phoney than hers.
Without a word, my smile said, I’m outta here you jerk-clerk.