All of us have something that we can blame on our genes, big hips, bad skin, perhaps a temper. In my family, we seem to all have a propensity for drama. We get ourselves into these scrapes that are seemingly not our fault. It’s like drama follows us, the pattern suggests that we may have some involvement in it but no one can really put their finger on what that involvement is. My most memorable bout with drama occured several months ago when I was falsely arrested and taken to jail.
Well, drama strikes again. Today I was returning a snowboard jacket that I had purchased about 10 days ago. I hadn’t worn it and was careful to save the receipt as I had purchased two and knew that one was to be returned. When the counter guy was ringing it up I kept seeing the error message on the screen, “Item has already been returned”. I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant but I kind of figured it wasn’t good. I wasn’t about to leave without my money and I thought it was just a computer blip or something so I waited. 20 minutes passed. Eventually, I left the store to run some errands nearby, taking the jacket with me and left my phone number to call me when they figured out how to refund me my money.
They called about 30 minutes later and told me to come back in, that they had figured it out and could give me a check. At this point I knew something sketchy had happened but I had purchased the jacket legitamitely and wasn’t about to leave without my money. Can’t prove what didn’t happen, right?
Well apparently you can try. When I got back to the store, they had me fill out paperwork with all my info, checked my id, all sorts of things that should have raised red flags for me but there wasn’t much I could do so I just did it. Then as I was about to leave, the manager tells me that their accountant wants to speak to me. Ok. He puts me on the phone with him, right there at the counter and the accountant percedes to ask me the same question in various ways. “How did I get away with stealing this jacket?” I kept telling him that I had no info for him and didn’t know why it had been returned 2 days after I purchased it by someone named Jon Neuman. He threatened to call the cops, told me I was lying, that if he found out I was lying he was going to report this as fraud, that he had security cameras and that he could check to see if I came in with the jacket, assumingly hoping I would crack under the pressure and confess. Fortunately, I had nothing to confess. I had to fight to keep my cool and not threaten to call the cops myself, claiming slander and public humiliation because at this point I’m near tears and standing at the counter, the manager and several customers standing in front me looking apologetic.
Eventually I get pissed off that little smart ass quips start to slip out and I wisely get off the phone before I say something really stupid. The whole situation was totally unprofessional and ridiculous. I left the store after getting the appropriate phone numbers and names, and should receive my money in the mail within 10 days (company policy apparently!).
With these near brushes with the law, I’m starting to wonder if the universe is trying to tell me something. Apparently I look like a criminal as I keep being mistaken for one. Which is ironic as I have never stolen anything in my life, nor done anything worthy of being arrested for that matter.
