Retail tales

My teenage coworker didn't show up at the Stop N Shop yesterday, so I was the lone cashier again.  Fortunately, the store manager Aylene was there, because it was an eventful afternoon in retail-land. 

Two customers came back like bad pennies a few minutes after they bought stuff, insisting on returning a watch that "didn't work" and a picture she decided she "didn't like."

We're a charity store for heaven's sake, not Nordstrom.  And the sign on the counter says, no refunds, no returns! (Yes, I'm already one of those hardened cashiers.) But the nice manager, for the sake of public relations, did it anyway. Good thing she was there, because I don't know how to do complicated credit card returns.

I never realized how many folks walk around without any money whatsoever. We have a five dollar minimum for credit card purchases, which miffs people, because they don't carry so much as a  dollar in their wallet to buy some silly thing at a junk store.

Then one of the serial shoplifters, featured on several pages in the Book of Thieves, came in the store. I noticed a rather furtive-looking, disheveled man, but hey, nothing too unusual about that in West Seattle.  The manager, however, thought she recognized him, and came rushing out for the photo binder.  He took one guilty look at us and was out the door and down the street.

Aylene was mad, because she wanted to confront him and "tell him off good" so he wouldn't come back. Really? All I can say is, some people are braver than me.

Well, I'm looking forward to a much less exciting day.

Darn, we're into that June gloom thing again. It isn't bad, although if it's going to be cool and cloudy, I sure wish it would rain so I didn't have to water.