Who wants a used weed-whacker?

A favorite pastime of the lawn service industry in these parts is buying trimmers and edgers, putting the old ones in the new boxes and returning the "defective" merchandise.

If you have a receipt, the people behind the service desk have very little room to manouver. I had one of those cases today. This guy brought in a grass trimmer. The receipt was ten days old. The trimmer was at least ten months old.

I pulled it out of the box and looked at it. Then I looked at him. Back at it, then back at him. "So what's wrong with, aside from the fact that it's been used a lot?"

I know I have to give the creep the money, but I did want to make him feel a little guilty. He tries to tell me the "recoil" is "off." Whatever. Then he tells me the separate $80 attachment is fine. I pull it out and it's as old as the trimmer, plus it still has grass stains and all on it.

I go "we can't sell that, you do understand that, right? I really don't care that you think it's fine." He just sort of looks at me like "whoa, I'm not ready for this much honesty on a Sunday."

So creepazola got $179 back for two USED grass trimmers. And that's how to scam your local Wal-Mart.