The Help

The Help is getting reeaally weak, let me tell you.

It's not the world my grandparents grew up in, that's for sure. I feel like they had nothing but Jimmy Stewarts' helping them buy suits, Donna Reeds' at the makeup counter, and Gomer Pyles' filling their cars with gas.

I just came home from a trip (twenty miles, that is) to Old Navy, only to find a hearty plastic security tag still screwed tightly to my son's jeans. Why it didn't beep when we left the store, I don't know. But the bigger question is why the little girl ringing us up didn't remove it! To my understanding, she has two jobs. One, 'remove security tags' and Two, 'take our money.' (Lord knows saying thank you, smiling, or being helpful --- have long since been dropped from the common employees to-do list.)
Yes - I usually recheck my purchases for mischarges or stuck tags, because this ain't my first time at the rodeo. But gimme a break.


At the slight chance this may have truly only been a simple case of retail-clerk human error, please allow me to be unforgiving for at least the length of this blog. I've done my time being patient in malls and stores. Believe me. And fyi -- I am under strict orders not to get sassy to deserving store employees while my children are still standing next to me. I am supposed to give them some hand-signal-of-evacuation that affords them the opportunity to run like a Marine when I feel the urge to start any necessary 'talks' with The Help.




At home I fantasize how when I call Old Navy  (as my teen cries 'It's fine! It's fine! It doesn't matter! Don't call!' from behind me)  ( . . right . . I can't even look at you cross-eyed -- you're going to wear a 3-inch metal dinghy stuck to your hip all school year?) ---they will surely apologize, or share a way for me to remove the device by myself, or offer some sort of discount if I drive all the way back. I know Old Navy school must have taught The Help that much about customer service, during their half day of sorta-corporate training? ~~Or, maybe they really do only teach them how to hold a twenty to the light.


Soooo -- yup.

'Just bring it here and we'll take it off,' I hear during my phone call to them.

'Um, I figured as much. My problem, you see, is the opportune time to have taken it off would have been when I was at your store. It's a real pain to drive all the way back now-from half an hour away. '

'What do you want me to say?'


(--I am now envisioning passionate plans to headbutt Brittany when I get there. --Straightaway look for Britt, and headbutt her--)


'Well, for instances, I was hoping you could tell me of something I might do at home to clip it off.'

'No'

'Is there anything else we can do about this?--'

'Uh, I'm busy with a customer right now'  (I guess I am a has-been customer?) . . can you hold--' (attitude, attitude)


No! I don't want to hold!  And so, in her monumental effort to make me either be quiet, or hang-up, Brittany succeeds---

There was no 'I'm sorry' or 'I understand' or 'What can we do to make this right, as your business and happiness mean everything to us here at your semi-local Old Navy.'


Now I fully realize real Christians don't let this kind of stuff get under their skin. They're all patient, and whatnot. But there are certain things about society that are really starting to get on my religious, and non-religious nerves.
Things like this . . and I would have to be like Super Dooper Born-Again to not act at least a little non Born-Again about it. It's not the accidentally left on device (if indeed, it was accidental and not just lazy) that gets me most, --but the whole 'who-cares' that goes with it, and woeful work ethic.



So why is it, you ask, --did I even bother with the phone call and not just clip it off myself?

First because, like I said, I fantasized that the call might have been of some help, somehow . . . but even more, --do you remember the buzz about these little babies being full of ink? Am I the only one that thinks that anymore?
All I had needed was for Navy Brittany to confirm it was no biggy to clip it off -- but she wouldn't fess up.
So I'm upset nuts-with-the-world, . . and meanwhile Hubby has slipped out back with son's new jeans, son's friends, and is about to go MythBusters on said-security-tag.
All fine and dandy til someone loses an eye, --or worse yet is sprayed with pink-bankrobber-dye, for their first day of school.

I bellow - and the mob at least consent to holding a sandwich baggy around the device before the clipping commences.


Sure enough in no time all jeans are freed, the men feel like studs, --and I'm not traipsing back to Old Navy --which was of course my original goal. But now, frankly, I am feeling more than a little peeved over the spoiled Brittany-Headbutting plans.




More Bliss complaining:

At the Cloth World counter yesterday, two young adults came up to where I was making a return. I assumed they were there to get thread for the grunge holes in their shirts, or some craft tool to retrieve the rings from their noses, but no, --they were job searching.

"Can I get an application?" asks the boy to the clerk. She hands him one and then, "oh, I guess, me too," adds the girl who's with him . . . like it's a total afterthought. Then the boy asks the clerk, "and do you have a pen or pencil I could use?"



I mean, how can I not be excited, right? The future Help right before my eyes! From what I can tell--and I don't want to judge--but I think they'll do wonderfully. Really on their game. Go that extra mile for a customer. Say 'thank you' when you've spent bucks. And dig deep for hidden or not-so-hidden security devices.



My shopping life blows.
Either that, or what can I say? I'm old, and I'm cranky.
You do the math.