Last Friday I walked up to a total stranger, smiled, and handed him a hundred bucks. Then I walked away.
Lucky me.
Luckier him.
Of course, there’s a story…
After intensive research, Shelly and I finally found the perfect outdoor furniture. Same stuff I wanted two years ago, but it finally looked appealing to both sets of eyes – because of the mail-in-offer. Three hundred dollars to spend in any Canadian Tire store. At long last, my outdoor La-Z-Boy.
After carting it home, and the usual cursing of the guy who wrote the assembly instructions, I relaxed in my soon-to-be favorite deck chair and, over a cold Kokanee, glossed over the rebate information. My focal point? The deadline. I hate rushing into the administrative end of things. Perfect. I’ve got a month.
The next weekend, I hauled all the boxes to the recycling station and then burned up most of my time test-driving the new acquisitions. Life is good. Monday morning, as I’m headed out the door to work, Shelly asked, “Did you cut out the UPC symbols from the boxes before you took them away?”
A rotten turnip landed in the pit of my stomach.
“The what?”
“The UPC symbols. Remember, you said you needed them to get the refund. You DID keep them, didn’t you?”
Crap!
“Well, I guess I kinda, you know…”
“You FORGOT! That’s three hundred dollars! NOW what’re we gonna do?”
“No biggie, I’m sure
these things happen all the time. I’ll call the store manager today, and get it all straightened out.” I’m dead meat if this guy doesn’t go to bat for me. I checked my watch. “Is that the time? I’m gonna be late, see you tonight!” For the first time in 15 years, I was happy to be heading to work.
I entered my office at the usual time, 6:59 AM, plus change. No use working for the man for free. Within minutes I made my first phone call to our local Canadian Tire outlet, just in case the manager happened to be in the store and manning the phones two hours before the doors opened. No luck. Whatever happened to employee loyalty? Several hours later, I successfully navigated my way past their mechanical pit-bull, and engaged in conversation with a real person.
“I’m sorry. The manager isn’t in right now.”
YOU’RE sorry!
I explained, she listened.
She explained, I listened.
“No, the UPC codes were fully intact and legible when I received them. I KNOW the rebate form clearly indicates both the till receipt and the UPC codes are required for acceptance. You see, I made an error. A boo-boo. My fault totally, but could you please try and help me out?”
I received assurance the manager would call me later in the day to hopefully resolve my dilemma. Six hundred hours later my eight-hour shift ended and, despite multiple calls by myself, a solution still evaded me.
The neighbor’s cat narrowly escaped a horrible death as I pulled into the driveway; she’s used to a much slower entrance. Dashing into the house, I made another call to Canadian Tire. Glenda, the customer service lady, greeted me warmly. It was almost like a reunion; we hadn’t spoken for at least twenty minutes. She had good news. The manager, who was not available at the moment, would be glad to make some calls on my behalf tomorrow. No guarantees of any success, but he would give it his best shot. I expressed my undying gratitude to Glenda, and may even have blurted out, “I love you” a few times. I’m really not sure.
The words “no guarantees” stuck in my head like honey on Winnie-the-Pooh.
On to plan B. The dumpster. It was empty on Saturday when I tossed three hundred dollars worth of cardboard in there. Why don’t I just go and drag it back out? This time, Fluffy was ready and watched from a safe distance as I burned out of the driveway and returned to the crime scene. I was prepared for whatever lay festering in the bottom of the large steel container, which turned out to be…nothing.
Empty.
Double crap!
As I pulled away from the neat row of yellow dumpsters, I noticed they all had the recycling company’s phone number on the side. Mentally scribbling down the Cranbrook number, I had a plan in place before arriving home.
“That’s right. The Sparwood truck. It is? Right now? Awesome, look I have a problem; maybe you could help me out.“ Being a “hearts-on-my-sleeve” guy, explaining awkward situations to complete strangers came easily.
“Certainly, sir. If we happen to see them, I’ll give you a call,” came the monotonic response. You could almost hear the magazine pages flipping as he spoke.
This is my last shot. If I blow this one, and the Canadian Tire guy comes up empty-handed, I’ll need those oversized boxes for more than the UPC symbols. Toss in a roll of duct tape, and I could make a pretty good shelter for myself. Temporary, of course, just to use until things cool down. Taking a deep breath, I said, “There’s a hundred bucks in it for anybody who comes up with those codes. All four.”
The pages stopped flipping. “Describe those boxes to me,” he said. “Any easy way of spotting them?” “Can I get your phone number?” “Four boxes? You said there’s four?”
I gave myself a mental slap on the back. The way I saw it, I wasn’t throwing away a hundred dollars, I was gaining two hundred. After all, I started with nothing. Ninety minutes later, the call arrived. After an hour and a half of sifting through tonnes of waste, the final bar code was retrieved. Mission accomplished. The rendezvous time and place were established, and the only thing left was to embezzle a hundred dollars out of our joint account to pay the guy off. No problem there. I’d been down that road many times.
Grabbing a cold one from the fridge, I went on the deck and sank into one of the chairs. I opened up the coffee table for a coaster, and spotted the product description and warranty cards for all four pieces. Perfect time to re-affirm what a great deal I’d made, and maybe even send in the cards. I opened the top package. It was nicely put together, complete with shipping weights and dimensions, technical data, a lovely photo and, on the back page, a familiar symbol.
A UPC bar code.
Every piece of furniture I purchased contained the same information.
On Friday, I walked up to a total stranger and handed him one hundred dollars. He offered me something in return, but I turned it down. I just smiled, and walked away.
Let him figure it out.
Photo Credit
“A Picture Share!” hikikomorix @ flickr. Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.
Wow! Great story…and I can completely visualize the entire story! Knowing both Terry and his wife Shelly for many years this is really only one of many stories that can be told! Terry, I never your creative side and I must say well done…keep providing us many more great stories! Thank you for sharing such a great and well written piece.
Well done, Terry. I could just see you getting ready to dumpster dive. What a feeling that must have been!
Hey, loved the story. However, it doesn’t surprise me that this could happen to you. I did warn
whats her name about you a long long time ago.
Great story Terry. Waitng for the two fried eggs for glasses story.
Terry – I am familiar with the story – and it still makes me laugh because I can actually picture you going thru the whole gyrations, not to mention what Shelly said to you! I love it! Just like Jerry Seinfeld – take real life situations and embellish a little – trouble is – I don’t think there was a whole lot of embellishment there (ok, perhaps that cat).
Keep up the great work Terry! Congratulations!
Radar? Holy cow, Aaron, I haven’t heard that name in a while. Thanks for all your positive comments everyone. They are truly appreciated.
Hilarious!!!!! Good work Radar! Keep it up! Look forward to reading more soon!
Excellent entertaining story, Terry! Loved every word of it!!
Loved every word! It gets better each time I read it..and I’m not just saying that because I’m your brother.
I loved the story Terry! I look forward to your future ones.
Loved this! Your writing flows and draws the reader in….not one waste of words; just a pleasure to find and read. Hope to read more from you in the future!
Love it!!! Love it!!!! Laughed after every word -visualizing you looking for that UPC. Keep up the great writings-we’ll be looking forward to reading more.