Screw You Guys, I'm Going Home

Lately I’ve been irritable. Some situation will catch me wrong, and the bone-headedness of it will just turn me from a calm rational adult to a 2-year-old who needs a nap. In those moments, its probably best to just give up and head home. If i can get through my front door without any further human contact, and without peeing my pants fiddling with the key, everything will probably be okay.

Something about ranting and raving you should know: it rarely helps. No matter how sensible my query or complaint may be, there’s a tone of voice that pretty much guarantees that I and the offending party will not come to any agreement. I’ll just have to storm out. This happened today at JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts.

Thing is, nobody actually needs anything they sell. It must be 20,000 square feet of random crap, but if you are creative at all, you’ll end up buying something. That’s the business model. We all know it. And what they sell is seasonal, so often items are marked down and stockpiled in the clearance section.

So I’m wandering through the store, developing a good bundle of items under one arm, among which is a remnant of vinyl trim, maybe 2 feet long at the end of a roll. This stuff is generally sold by length, but this short strip, bound with tape, and marked with one clearance price tag made me think it and the 20 others heaped in the bin were remnants. I could be wrong, but it makes sense that nobody is buying half of the last 2 feet of a discontinued trim piece. This logical assessment is where my problem often begins.

The cashier didn’t see it that way. “It has to be measured. These are sold by length,” was her robotic response. Every new input of data from me elicited the same response. I say, “It’s a remnant, its got a clearance tag, the tag doesn’t say per foot or per yard.” Same response.

I asked her to check. I bet her fifty bucks. Same response. Then it occurred to me, since I had brought it up, that at this point the money in my pocket was still mine. It can stay in my pocket. I don’t need the product or the conflict. So I said, ”Keep it- keep it all.” And I left. OOOH! Big man. I’ll show them. But 2-year-olds are stubborn, right? So I probably won’t return any time soon.

Again, big deal. They have lots of other customers. They didn’t beg me to stay, and that’s fine. I don’t think hourly employees understand the concept of a negative referral. I storm out, she waits on the next, some kid restocks the items. No big whoop. On Friday, she’ll approach the boss for a paycheck, and the funds to pay her will somehow magically be there, right?

So why am I so lit up? Why do I care? And why can’t my neighbor park he stupid car one foot to the right EVER so we can all park here at our home without a problem? And who made this door key? Why did they grind it down too far so I have to put it in and back it out while jiggling it till it hits the sweet spot and turns? And why does a bladder start to fail long before the rest of the body? All these issues fire through my mind as I try to get back to my place of quiet refuge. All of these problems are so obvious, I know just how to resolve them and yet nobody wants or needs me to offer my wisdom. My phone doesn’t ring. No official limo is idling in my driveway with orders from the President to whisk me off to some remote laboratory to consult and develop a strategy for saving the world, funded by selling vinyl remnants at shell companies run by the Secret Service.

Its as if nobody needs me. At all. The whole world will continue to operate just fine without my input. Another logical assessment which does me no good; just makes things worse. At least I made it home. I think I’ll have a snack.