Ah, the day after Christmas.
As your last overnight guest ambles off toward home and the dishwasher gurgles contentedly on its final load, your holiday stress melts like the slush in the entry.
(Deep sigh)
Only one task remains on your Christmas to-do list: returns.
Yup, it is time to revisit all the stores you swore never to step foot in for another year.
Black Friday may open the holiday season but Return Day closes it and you will not be free of your holiday obligations until you have spent your morning in a line, eyes focused on the floor, slowly shuffling forward, clutching the zebra-print sweater you received from your Aunt Edna.
It is what she gives you every year.
And every year you plod along in a procession of holiday refugees, slowly inching ever closer toward the surly young clerk whose face is half-hidden by a mop of carbon-black hair.
Do not be fooled. This clerk is not who you think she is.
Look past the cobalt-blue eye liner, past the foundation applied with a putty knife, past the tear-drop tattoo on her cheek. Despite her appearances, she is a professional. She is the closer. The one who our economy depends upon to retain the hard-won profits of the Christmas season.
She is now demanding to know why you are returning the item.
“It’s a zebra-print sweater,” you say. as if that were explanation enough.
She falls back on the incredulous. “Is it defective?” she asks (as if a defect was the only acceptable reason for returning a zebra-print sweater).
“No, other than the concept,” you say, “it’s in fine shape.”
Then comes the gotcha. “Do you have a receipt?”
“No,” you say, knowing that although the store policy clearly states no receipts are required, we all know such policies come with a companion policy that mandates anyone who returns an item without a receipt be sneered at by clerks well-schooled in the art of sneering.
She sneers – but you are well-schooled in the art of enduring sneers.
She pivots in another direction. “Was this item a gift?” she asks.
You admit it was.
She says nothing but her sneer says, “you ungrateful sot.”
Again you endure.
Eventually the sweater passes from you to her. She accepts it like an abandoned puppy. She folds it lovingly and places it carefully upon a cart of rejected gifts, stacked high with loud sweaters, as-seen-on-TV gadgets, candles, fuzzy robes, boot racks, soaps-on-a-rope and neckties.
“Without a receipt,” she says, “I can only give you store credit.”
This is an acceptable compromise; the store preserves its profit and you are armed with credit to spend on after-Christmas mark downs.
As her fingers clack across the keyboard and the printer zips off your credit slip, another clerk in torn blue-jeans and a floppy t-shirt, wheels away the cart.
He bumps the cart through the swinging doors of the return area and makes his way toward a series of hastily constructed card board signs hanging from the ceiling.
“DEALS!! DEALS!! DEALS!!” the signs declare.
And there waiting beneath the signs stands your Aunt Edna.
You see her but she does not see you. How could she? She is as focused as a famished cheetah on the marked-down zebra-print sweater rolling her way.
Almost Iowa 
Is it bad if I now think my wardrobe needs a zebra print sweater?
Uh…that’s bad, very very bad. 🙂 🙂
Very bad. I’m gonna have to fight Aunt Edna for one.
So that’ll be Aunt Edna buying your Christmas present for next year, Greg.
It is.
The store gets their money one way or the other. Store credit to a store I will never again set foot in…
It is sad to see the stores evaporate. I like to apply my senses to what I buy and you can’t do that on the internet.
My son once worked for Best Buy and described it as Amazon’s showroom.
I love this! And is a pretty accurate description of the gifting-returning-gifting process. When my daughter was young my sister gave her a lightbulb painted with inspirational sayings three years in a row. Not sure it was the exact same lightbulb, but does that even matter?
Who could tire of inspiration? 🙂
The story’s great, and a great reminder of the days when returning gifts was a thing. Of course, the last time I ventured into a department store of any sort was around 2005, so the need to head back to the scene of the purchase for a return is minimal these days. Beyond that, I no longer have a mother who’s determined to clothe me like the professional woman I stopped being in 1990, so that helps. Today, I have friends who offer gifts like venison sausage and hiking socks — none of which I’d ever return!
I heard on the news last night that 17% of all gifts will be returned this year. That is a lot of zebra print sweaters.
Venison sausage? Mmmmmmm, love it.
Since Ralphie couldn’t return his bunny suit to a store, I hope his mom allowed him to bury it beneath the bed and pretend it never happened!
I would love to see Ralphie’s bunny suit to show up on Antiques Roadshow!
All of this made me wonder: do you know JD McPherson? Great musician, with a related and very funny song for the season.
Guess she keeps forgetting what she gave you the year before.😂 My plan (works like a charm) is to generally avoid the gift exchange altogether. Hubby and I stuck to a stocking-gifts-only limit this year.
My Christmas gift this year was a Santa driving a tractor ornament. How can you beat that?
Totally perfect!
Busted – of course, you’ll get it again next year.
At least I know what to expect.
Thanks for the laughs Mike. The gift that never stops giving and regifting!
Regifting laughs is the best.
😊
I have to weigh the value of a unwanted gift against two parameters. 1. Is is worth returning? 2. Is is better served as a regift with out a ruined reputation? 3. Can someone in the need of a donation accept it? A yes to one or more lays out a plan.
Very analytical, John. My wife’s approach is to toss it in the storage locker. I am thinking maybe I will quit paying the fee and let Storage Wars claim all the junk.
That sounds like a good plan too.
Maybe Edna’s been dropping a hint all those years? Hold on to the sweater, wait for a year or two and regift her heart’s desire!
Funny story, Greg!
Truth is, Edna is the queen of regifters. Sometimes, she just slaps a her gift tag over the old one and sends it on its way.
Funny thing is, my family did that with a birthday card, we just kept rotating the same card, it went on for a couple of years.
Hope Edna has a large family and someone else wins the lottery next year. 🙂
Our family belongs to a tribe of big families. We had ten kids and were considered the slackers.
Merry Boxing Day!!
Ugh. Return day is worse than Black Friday. I never go on Dec. 26…
Edna can beat me to the sweater. I’m fine with that.
🦓
Yeah, the returners are just as aggressive as the Black Friday Hordes. You would think there is a lesson somewhere in that.