The cook, the yapper, his sardines and her godforsaken salad

Other than the title, this post has nothing to do with the 1989 Peter Greenaway film. (Although I highly recommend it!)

This is a long post, and may not be particularly entertaining. Come back tomorrow if you want the scamorama action.

OK. I don't particularly like people with money, usually because it seems to be on an inverse correlation with manners and politeness.

My theory of "Please and Thank You" is that there's a magic tipping point drawn very narrowly around the middle class where you either ARE or RECALL "working for a living" and you're polite to the rest of the serfs. Above that line and you're a tool. BELOW that line and you're in the magic land of entitlement and "O hai, iz white trash day at the Wal-Mart?" Manners and breeding couldn't make it through that swamp with hip-waders and a machete. A-NEE-WAY!

I get the oh-so-lovely chore of doing Customer Service from 4-11 all by my lonesome on a Saturday night. Joyful. Joyful. How I effing adore thee.

Into the mix rolls a couple in the firm throes of late-yuppiedom. They're dressed in Late UMC New England Yuppie - khaki shorts and an Izod golf shirt for him and some really ugly seafoam green shorts that make her behind look huge and an even uglier pale pastel blocky-printy shirt for her. And white sandals. Ugh. Buy some taste. Or get better girlfriends who will point out your mistakes. I know you might not be into Ann Taylor territory yet. But not everything in Dillards is necessarily a good idea.

He Yuppie is returning, I kid you not, a can of salmon, a can of sardines and a can of olives. Without a receipt. This in and of itself is not a huge deal. Vacationing Yankees are all the time buying stuff when they arrive for vacation and returning it when they leave. I've seen one woman return more than $1oo in frozen dinners before. I just have to remember to defect out the returned food and not put it back on the sales floor. Anyway.

The real entertainment is the conversation between the He Yuppie and the She Yuppie, here-to-after referred to as Huppie and Shuppie. They each have separate carts, and she's too good to come all the way into Customer Service. While he's "attending to business," she's standing out by the ATM flipping through the pages of a copy of "People" she picked up off a buggy of returns I've yet to sort.

She's the disinterested sort that comes to Wal-Mart, picks up stuff on the shelf, looks at it, holds it out, puts it back on the shelf, picks it up again, looks over the top of her glasses at it and finally puts it in her cart. And returns it all three weeks later without the tags because her girlfriend Sue told her it looked like something a dog barfed on and she never really liked it anyway but "Target costs too much money" so she only shops at Wal-Mart. Anyway.

The conversation rolled out something like this.

ME: "Can I help you Sir?"
HUPPIE: "We want to return these." And clunks a Publix bag with the salmon, sardines and olives on the counter. This is obviously the royal "WE" because there is no other person around, and the woman behind him in line is fighting with a howler monkey and definitely NOT with him.

ME: "Okay. Do you have the reciept?"
HUPPIE: "No. Do you have the receipt?" This was directed over his shoulder to the woman in the funky pastel seafoam outfit. Which is when I noticed that Shuppie was to be a part of this little parade. The rest of the conversation and the return took place with him standing at an angle to the counter, although he had little to say to me.

SHUPPIE: "NOITHOUGHTYOUHADIT." Never looked at him. Kept flipping through "People." Because, you know, Jennifer Aniston is sooooo "ready to love again." See, I keep up!
HUPPIE: "I don't have it."
ME: "Okay. I just need your driver license."
HUPPIE: "That's fine." He forks it over and I start. I have to scan the items and print out defective slips and then write "RETURNED" on all the slips and tape the slips to the cans.

SHUPPIE: "What are you returning?"
HUPPIE: "The salmon."
SHUPPIE: "Why?"
HUPPIE: "I bought three cans. We already had some. We're not going to use this unless we make salad and have people over."

SHUPPIE: "What about the sardines?"
HUPPIE: "I was going to bring them back too."
SHUPPIE: "Whaddaya do that for?"
HUPPIE: "We already got two tins."
SHUPPIE: "But I want to cook tonight."
HUPPIE: "Well we gotta go to Publix."
SHUPPIE: "Why we gotta go to Publix? I don't want to go to Publix."

HUPPIE: "You want to make salad right?"
SHUPPIE: "Who said anything about salad?"
HUPPIE: "Salad. You said you were going to cook tonight."
SHUPPIE: "What are we gonna cook?"
HUPPIE: "I don't know. Pasta and salad."
SHUPPIE: "Why do we need sardines for salad?"

HUPPIE: "That's why we're going to Publix?" I lost it here. I couldn't follow the conversation. I don't think they were either. I don't understand the link between sardines and salad, unless you chop them and put them on the salad. But they had a huge tin.
SHUPPIE: "What's at Publix?"
HUPPIE: "Salad."
SHUPPIE: "What are we doing here then?"
HUPPIE: "I got to return this stuff."
SHUPPIE: "Why are you returning it? Aren't we going to cook tonight?"

HUPPIE: "No. I told you, we already had some sardines and salmon. Do you want olives for the salad?"
SHUPPIE: "Maybe. I'll look at Publix."
HUPPIE: "So now you want to go to Publix?"
SHUPPIE: "Yeah. Are you done yet? I'm ready to go. I'll meet you at the jewelry counter."

HUPPIE: "You done yet?" And he looks at me.
SHUPPIE: "Did you hear me? I said I'm going to jewelry."
HUPPIE: "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm almost done."
SHUPPIE: "OK. Fine. I'm going."

ME: "OK. I need you to sign this. You get $4.10 back sir. Thank you."
HUPPIE: "Thank you."

It was insane. It was like being trapped in a bad Woody Allen film (wait, that's an oxymoron). I just wanted to scream BAGGED SALAD IN GROCERY! TOSSED SALAD IN BEDROOM #1. PLEASE JUST PICK ONE, SHUT THE HELL UP AND LEAVE!

Thank you. Tonight's entertainment courtesy the thirtysomething Group and Yuppielicous Productions. Coming soon to an angst-bar near you!

The monkeys at the zoo

Look. Lady. I know. I know. I know. OK. It's Sunday. You've got your pack of howler monkeys with you and apparently Sunday night at 9 p.m. is the only time all week you can drag yourself right up off the couch and in to the House of Wal for some shopping and some returning. What you need to do to take that pack of demons home. Or turn them over to a local animal shelter. All six of them. This is Bob Barker. Thank you for help controlling the pet population in L.A. Remember to have yourself spayed or neutered.

Back to me. Ma'am. Please do me the courtesy of looking at me. Not at your child making noise with one of my nineteen buggies of returns. I'm not going to be able to return this copy of "Zoo Tycoon 2: African Safari Expansion Pack."

Roll tape:

ME: "Ma'am, I can't return that. We don't return open software, movies, music or DVDs."
HER: "It doesn't install. We tried it on three computers."
ME: "OK. I can give you another copy of the software, but I can't give you money back on this."
HER: "What about a store credit?" Seriously people. What the hell do you think a store credit is? IT IS A REFUND! "Store credit" is not code for "break the rules for my special snowflake self and approve my sketchy return."

ME: "No ma'am. No store credit. No cash. If the product is defective you can get another copy."
HER: "Well it won't install."
ME: "OK. I would advise you to sell it on eBay or take it to a GameStop."
HER: "I don't want to do that. I think I should be able to return it." I think you should have had your tubes tied four kids ago. Limit 2, like the Chinese. And your mouth sewn up for good measure. But I'm not telling you how to run your business.

ME: Pick up package. "Ma'am. This is an expansion pack for Zoo Tycoon 2. It's an add-on. You do have Zoo Tycoon 2, right?"
HER: "Uhhhhhhh. I don't know. KAYLA COME HERE RIGHT NOW! What do we have?"
KAYLA: "Oh, I just have Zoo Tycoon 1. I thought this would work."

ME: "There's your problem then. It says right on the front 'Must have Zoo Tycoon 2 installed.'"
HER: "Oh. I didn't read it when she bought it." No. You just chunked $23 dollars down on the counter like it was change for a cup of coffee. Lady, do you know how many hours I have to stand on my feet talking to people like YOU to make $23 dollars?
ME: "You just need to go buy 'Zoo Tycoon 2' for her and it will work fine."
HER: "I don't want to spend any more money."
ME: "Ma'am, we're not going to return it."
HER: "Oh."
ME: "Here's your bag back. Here's a sticker. You have a nice day."

She was being dismissed before she knew what happened. Take the children. Go. Leave. Now.

I know you got six kids and all - and they do appear to be a fistful of trouble - but that was your choice. YOUR CHOICE. YOURS. (maybe a husband or a turkey baster or whatever had something to do with it) The point remains that if you do not know what your children are buying, then you do not need to be spending money on it. "PUT THAT BACK" needs to join your vocabulary. Buddha know I heard it a lot when I was little.

A fishy story

OK. You have the blender - the same blender - not an old one (because that trick does get played), neatly packaged in the original box - complete with instructions. You've got a receipt from about a month ago - which is well within our 90-day limit to return an item. There ain't gonna be no problem returning this here blender.

So please tell me lady - please, for the love of caviar and toast points - when I ask you "Have you used the blender at all?" - do you feel compelled to lie to me? "No. I never used it."

Why is "Have you used it?" a starting point for a web of lies?

Well, for one, when I take the blender jar out to see if it is indeed the same as on the box - I CAN SEE FISH SCALES STUCK ALL AROUND THE SCREW THING ON THE BOTTOM! It's like a koi pond down there. I don't know whether to laugh or throw pennies and put up Buddhist statues and start meditating!

Furthermore, you've had it for a month. You might have, you know - I don't know - tried it out in all that time. Besides. The smell coming from this thing is like the back door of a fish joint.

The only reason I'm asking is that I need to know if we can sell the blender again. Yes. We do need to know these things - you pert little Asian yuppie wearing a pink and green spaghetti-strap dress and fitted out in jade bangles and with a beautiful short sexy haircut.

I don't really care that "Your mother decided she didn't want a blender." What you do with the aged crone is your business. Chop her up and put her in the blender and serve her with fava beans and a nice Chianti. Make a nice California roll. Whatever. Did. You. Use. The. Blender?

Your mother is NOT RELEVANT to the discussion. "DID. YOU. USE. IT." Sashimi. Oyster margaritas. Fish rolls. Salmon croquettes. Fugu for five. Starfish for six. Jonathan Livingston Seagull for seven. Slade Gorton stew. I don't care. Just tell the truth.

YES or NO. The answer is simple. Because you would sure enough blow a gasket it we sold you a blender that looked and smelled like someone ground up enough fish to keep Mrs. Paul's in business for the next decade. OK? Okay. What are you doing with a blender anyway? Blender are not cheap food processors. As obviously you learned when you tried to grind up fish - scales and all.

After all. It is a $24 blender. Don't nobody need to commit perjury for the sake of $24. For reals.

Buttons. Mash. DEFECTIVE. [Customer said motor burned out & there was a burning smell.]

Because I have to lie. I can't put "Cheap woman bought a blender, ground up some fish and returned it because she really needs a food processor but is too cheap to pay a $100 for even a low-end KitchenAid model."

Take a picture, it will last longer

There must be signs outside the Wal-Mart. "Check your intelligence at the door" or more likely "Stoopid pepul shawp hur." Honestly. Who buys two $300 cameras and then "loses" the receipt? How did you GET the $600 to buy the cameras if you're that stupid? If anyone knows, please tell me.

So this yuppie dad trying to look cool in his knockoff leather jacket rolls in with his proto-Paris love child in tow. Honey. Wash your face. Too much make-up for 14. Hell, too much makeup for 30.

There are no pleasantries. He's a haute finance type slumming it at the House of Wal for cheap electronics, so he expects to bark and me to listen. "Her camera broke. We want a new one."

My question of "Um. Do you have the receipt?" is followed by "No. Do we need it? We just want another camera."

Yeah. You need the receipt.

I look up the warranty for this particular brand of cameras - we don't take back Samsung cameras without a receipt. Well we can, but Samsung doesn't give us any money for it. They laugh and call us fools for being stupid.

I print the warranty - complete with the 1800 number for Samsung and explain that him losing his receipt was oh, I dunno, a teensy problem. He bitches, he moans, he creates enough hot air to thaw Greenland and finally leaves.

And ...... we're back 15 minutes later with the receipt. "Found it in my car. I knew I had it." Then why not make an effort and bring it in the first time? Because, you know, I always try to return $200 cameras without any proof I paid for them and it works out so well.

So this time I actually open up the box and look at the camera. And we have more problems. "Sir. I can't accept this return. You don't have the USB cable, the instruction manuals or the CD." Yeah dude, you just threw the camera in the box.

"We just want another camera." Well, I want a steampunk keyboard, a white chocolate mocha and a hot man. I wonder who's gonna get lucky first?

So they go get another camera. And complain about having to wait in line back in Photo. And complain that there are lines at Customer Service. It's a store. There are lines. Be thankful this isn't Soviet Russia. They waited in line just to wait in line.

I open up the box and take out the USB cable, the installation CD and the user manual. I put that in the box with the defective camera and send that one back to Claims. They leave with a new camera.

And proto-Paris is again free to inflict her bad snaps unto the world. At least it wasn't a video camera .....

Flowering Inferno

This is an open letter to the perfectly deceitful middle-aged woman who had the gall to return 18 wilted roses on Saturday night.

You are absolutely without shame. Although you did not yell or scream or otherwise debase yourself in an audiovisual manner, you deserve the "Sucky Customer of the Year" award for having the temerity to return eighteen flowers - that someone else bought for you - for a lousy $13.84. ALL THIS THREE DAYS AFTER THE FLOWERS WERE PURCHASED.

Yes ma'am. I know that you "got your reciept" and that you were not satisfied with the merchandise that your husband purchased for your birthday. Yes, we do have a giant sign with four-inch letters that says something to the effect of "It is our policy to satisfy our customers by refund, exchange or repair."

You, ma'am, however, do not deserve satisfaction. You deserve nothing more than a piano dropped onto your head from a four-story building in the faint hope it can hammer home a clue. PS: I can see from the snarling set of your lips that you are obviously not getting any 'satisfaction' at home either.

You, ma'am, although I begrudge giving you one iota of respect, even a courtesy title, you made sure your husband saved a receipt with a birthday card, a bottle of wine and two bunches of flowers on it. Everyone involved in this little tete-a-tete knows that you planned to return those flowers all along.

Just speaking to you calmly is an effort for me. It is to your eternal fortune that I was highly medicated and thus was able to resist the urge to take up the sad roses whose honor you had tarnished with your tawdry "love them and leave them" affair and beat you about the head. Yes bitch, every rose does have its thorns. Can you feel it now? Or is that what your husband says?

No one. I repeat NO ONE should ever think it is acceptable to return cut flowers. You are the fat kid's urine in the shallow end of the gene pool. I can tell from the receipt that these were reduced and were certainly clearly marked as such on the bouquets. The REDUCED price tags are bright yellow and say REDUCED in all caps. They have to be specially printed and stuck on over the regular barcode.

Your husband - who loves you so much he did your birthday shopping at a low-rent discount store like Wal-Mart - purchased $13.84 worth of reduced price roses. He didn't even care enough to pick out fresh cheap flowers. He picked out old cheap flowers. That lovely wilted rose scent really goes with your cheap perfume too. What is that? Eau de la Trampe le Skanke? And your cheap jewelry. Did he buy that for you too? Better take it in and have it checked.

But you two obviously deserve each other. He got you cheap flowers. You're obviously stupid and selfish. The whine in your voice when you said "Well I just think they ought to last longer" was almost enough to make me feel sorry for him.

You are talking about cut-rate reduced-price flowers from Wal-Mart. The same bouquet is going to run you at least $80 on Teleflora or $50 on 1800flowers.com. Your local florist would have be at least in the $30 - but you would have gotten a vase, greenery and two weeks of life. But your loving husband shops at Wal-Mart on his way home from work. I bet your sex life is just as hurried and unimaginative - the same three-minute loop repeated once a week on Saturdays with a special extended five-minute version on birthdays & anniversaries.

Here's a few hints. First, the man shops at Wal-Mart. He is obviously not a keeper. Next, he purchased 18 roses for $13. Obviously, these are not high-quality botanicals. Three, you are just a disgusting specimen of humanity who is serving no useful purpose other than to consume resources and perpetuate stupidity. Obviously Darwinism is not functioning as a population control mechanism. I hope you didn't have children. I can only imagine the functionally stupid adults they grew into.

I'm only shocked you didn't try to return the card he bought you - or the wine - both of which I could see on the same receipt. I didn't like this wine. It gave me a hangover. Can I return it?

PS: Toxicodendron radicans, with three almond-shaped leaves and little white berries makes a beautiful houseplant. You can dig them up on almost any roadside and transplant it all over your yard and house. I think it is just the perfect plant for you.

I'm not a complainer

I almost bit my tongue in half this past weekend trying not to blow up at a man. I'm not a fan of yuppies. We all know how I feel about howler monkeys, much less yuppies with howler monkeys. Yuppies with multiple howler monkeys need forced sterilization.

Anyway. I lost my joi de vivre after about an hour of the heat and the stupidity on Sunday. I couldn't make jokes about people returning babies or husbands. I just didn't care. There's only so much of white trash returning $145 dollars worth of stolen fishing line you can deal with per day.

So Yuppielicious rolls up with three kids. Two are standing in the shopping cart with a Ziploc bag of goldfish crackers. A trip to the Wal-Mart do not necessitate provisions. This is not the Oregon Trail! Before they're gone, there are enough goldfish and goldfish crumbs to start seventeen Zen water gardens and possibly feed a family of mice for a year.

Then there's the blonde and mouthy pre-adolescent - the proto-Paris - who actually turns out to be pretty cool.

Yuppielicous has some pool thing he wants to return. But before he even starts the return, he starts waving an empty jar around goes on a RANT about peanuts. I can't remember. I don't really care.

The rant was about how we don't have the specific type of unsalted peanuts he wants. How there is no shelf space for them but that the other Wal-Mart he goes to has them. Why doesn't this Wal-Mart have them anymore?

Do I look like I know? I can get someone for you. That's all I can do. See that man over there. Go talk to him. He's got a radio. He can get someone who might know something. Me, I just mash buttons. DID YOU NOT HEAR WHAT I JUST SAID? I really don't know why we don't have your precious peanuts. Seriously. You got to shut up. Eh. Wait. Let me get a word in. Nope. Not now. Maybe now. Sir. Sir. If you .. fine. Talk to the air. I'll sit here and nod. OK. That's all about peanuts? You can talk to Daniel over there when you're done.

He shuts up about the peanuts. Seems to accept the fact that there is nothing I can do. Maybe he just needed to vent. I can accept that.

Then, like a bad relationship, when the wife takes the cheating husband back, we move on into a whole 'nother realm of dysfunction.

ME: "Do you want to return that."
YUPPIELICIOUS: "Yeah."
ME: "What's wrong with it?"
YUPPIELICIOUS: "It didn't work."
ME: "What specifically is wrong with it? We need to be able to tell the manufacturer. Did the seals blow out, did it break, what?" It was a plastic, blow-up pool toy of some sort.
YUPPIELICIOUS: "Yeah. We tried to blow it up but it has a hole in it."

ME: Looks at receipt. Purchased May 15. Is now July 29. School starts in three weeks. Funny how it manages to get a mysterious hole after you've gotten a good ten weeks of use out of it.

YUPPIELICIOUS: "We never used it once. Everything we buy here breaks." Continues for a while. Their pool filter is malfunctioning. His daughter's bike is bad. He didn't like some strawberries he bought last week. His paper shredder makes funny noises. You're still shopping here .... you're still shopping here ....
ME: "But you're just returning it now? You bought it more than two months ago."
YUPPIELICIOUS: "Well we can still return it can't we?"
ME: picks up package, notices distinct smell of chlorine, processes return. "Do you want me to put it back on your debit card or cash?"

YUPPIELICIOUS: "Can you give me cash, we're going to the bowling alley later? Can you believe it, the bowling alley charges $4.75 per game. A man can't take his family out. That's just too much money." Continues in this vein for a while. I get an earful about the bowling alley, the high cost of living, the difficulty of finding family entertainment, etcetera.
YUPPIE'S BLONDE DAUGHTER: "Daddy, you said we weren't going to go bowling. You said we couldn't go." PWNED. By a seven-year-old.

YUPPIELICIOUS: "Well we might go later this week." Dude, seriously. Your parenting issues are not my problem. But if you have to lie to me about your kids in front of your kids, you have more issues than Newsweek. And then lie to your kids about the lies you just told me about your kids? That's just .... messed up. You should not have been allowed to spawn!

ME: "Uh. Here's your money. Sign this."
YUPPIELICIOUS: "OK."
ME: internally "Please Jesus. Just make this man leave. I am about to gouge out my eyeballs with a spork."
YUPPIELICIOUS: "I'm not a complainer, but I got to talk to someone about the peanuts."

ME: "But you're complaining right now." I swear, this slipped out before I could bite it back.

Fortunately for me, he was so in love with the sound of his own voice he didn't even notice I said anything.

ME: "Like I said, you can talk to Daniel right over there. See, that metal box? Go talk to him. He's the manager on duty."
YUPPIELICIOUS: "Him?"
ME: "Right there. Black guy. Blue shirt. Dark brown pants. Holding the radio."
YUPPIELICIOUS: "OK."
ME: Make it leave, make it leave, make it leave, make it leave, make it leave, make it leave, make it leave, make it leave, make it leave ....

I officially had craptastic karma all this weekend.

LOCKED. Yes. Closed. No. Not Going To Open. Not Even For You

Yes. It is time for another "entitled yuppie" post - with a dash of "women of a certain age" thrown in for good measure. The stereotypes are flying fast and furious - and I wasn't even behind the counter!

After 10 p.m. every night, the supervisors at our store take a buggy with a two-part safe built into it around to all the "outlying" registers - namely Vision Center, Garden, Jewelry, Electronics, Sporting Goods, TLE, Photo Lab and Connection Center - and "close" and "reset" those registers.

This process consists of taking all the day's cash, checks, credit card receipts, etc., out of the register and putting a NEW pack of singles, fives, tens and a round of change in the register. Wal-Mart uses blue bag about three inches by twelve inches with the zipper down the long side to hold the money. There's a number on each bag to correspond with the specific register number - i.e. - Vision Center is Register #98, Sporting Goods is Register #77.

Anyway. This is a two-person process - not because it requires two people - but because Wal-Mart rules require that any cash-handling (other than routine change orders) taking place on the sales floor be carried out by two associates - one to perform the task - and another to verify that no hanky-panky takes place.

The point of all this is that while I'm "guarding the money" out near our Garden Center registers while our overnight supervisor takes out the cash and checks, I look up and a middle-aged white woman is banging on the outside door. Black pants suit, heels, expensive blonde pageboy. Attitude that needed an adjustment.

Our Garden Center doors are locked at 9:30 p.m. for security reasons - mainly because we don't have the staff to stop people just walking out with tons o'stuff.

The doors are locked. There WAS a line of buggies pushed across the outside of the door and there are three trash cans pulled across the inside. The "magic eye" sensor shuts off once the lock is moved into LOCK position. It ain't gonna open.

But she's banging on the doors and pointing at me and then pointing into the store.

I move my arms in a back-and-forth "NO" motion. She doesn't like that.

She points at her watch. Then she motions to the doors and mimes squeezing them apart.

Again I do the "NO" motion. She REALLY doesn't like that.

She stomps her foot and throws her hands up in the air with a "Well what am I gonna do now?" look.

I draw a half-circle with my hand and mouth "Drive around." More gesticulating.

Now she mouths the "Please" and motions to the door. Yeah. That's really going to work. Whip out a twenty and we might begin a conversation. Bring the hot gardener and we might be able to arrange a deal. Given the right currency, I've got no morals at all.

I make a key in a lock motion and then shrug my shoulders like I don't have the keys.

She stomps her foot again and climbs back into a Cadillac Escalade and drives off.

If every light in that area of the parking lot is dark, if the door is blocked, if the employees are telling you the door is locked, if the door does not open even if you bang on it, please tell me Buddha, please - WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THIS DOOR IS OPEN?

I hear Petulant Mime is this year's hot new color. Seriously, does anyone need hydrangeas at 10:30 p.m. that badly?

Trail riders in the sky

Hi there. Pseudo-yuppie scum are the bane of my existence. Just because you can afford to rent a home in a neighborhood that won't let me through the front gate doesn't mean you actually ARE yuppies. You might want to check out the "professional" part. And while you're at it - the "young" part.

As has been chronicled here before, we're not supposed to take back bikes - but this policy has been crumbling as idiot human after idiot human cries, whines, bawls, sputters, complains, howls, carps, gripes, grouses, grumbles, moans, squawks, wails, laments and finally manages to hector some underpaid and under-brainpowered manager into "making an exception." Saturday saw six "exceptions" littering the Service Desk by 10 p.m.

So pseudo-yuppie and his towel-girl consort (green terrycloth shorts don't look good on fashion models honey, much less your lumpy milk-white legs) want to return not one but TWO adult bikes that they bought this morning and claim both are junk.

"We took off on them down the road and the noise was awful. All I could hear was racket." Hmm. Maybe because you're riding beside a major county highway?

But we're not supposed to take back bikes. Remember? So I tell him "No. We can repair them." Which is followed by the typical white-trash-with-an-attitude sewer storm of entitlement and bile that usually trails a few sentences after the word "No" whenever said expression is used in a retail setting.

Personally, I don't care. I'd take back a baby if it had a receipt. But I'm not going to be handing out $200 without covering my back.

So I get someone to talk to Pseudo-Yuppie and Green Terrycloth - and they say "Go ahead." **sigh**

So now he gives me one of those "I showed you" grins and started to open his mouth. I gave him a look that would melt glass and he shuts it.

And after having won the right to rent a bicycle from Wal-Mart and get his $195 back - and securing cash for his bud, beer and whatever else, the happy couple proceeds CELEBRATE by making out right there up at Customer Service while I'm scanning receipts and typing in numbers off said sweaty, stinky receipts.

Not just a hug and a peck mind you, but full-on body-wrap "let me check your tonsils" kissing. There were also wandering fingers, hands and an occasional toe being seen in NOT THE CORRECT PLACES! Not appropriate. Not appropriate. PS: Your children are going to look like monkeys! Ugly Jane Goodall reject monkeys!

Scuzzy vacationers who "rented" bikes for the afternoon. I hope you get TB on the plane home.

How 'blu' can you make me feel?

The worst thing that Wal-Mart ever did to encourage stupidity among the movie-buying public - (besides stocking "Pan's Labyrinth") - was to start selling those freakishly expensive Blu-Ray DVDs.

Yes. Now, you get the privilege of paying $30 for craptastic Hollywood blockbuster and get to watch it on a screen several orders of magnitude smaller than what you should have gone to see it on in a cinema. But this isn't a Blu-Ray DVD post.

This is a stupid customer post.

Wal-Mart does not sell Blu-Ray DVD players in stores. At least, I've never seen one. I could only find ONE Blu-Ray DVD player available at the walmart.com Web site - and it costs $698.00.

So tell me Cthulhu, why do Wal-Mart be selling the Blu-Ray discs? Why do stupid customers be buying the discs? >> Which come in blue packaging and sit under a four foot sign that says - DO NOT PURCHASE UNLESS YOU HAVE A BLU-RAY DVD PLAYER! Why are Wal-Mart customers stupid enough to pay $30 for a "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" DVD when RIGHT NEXT TO the Blu-Ray display the two-packs of REGULAR DVDs are selling for $16.87?

Someone please answer me - have you managed to make it through the last two years and literally not heard ONE SINGLE WORD about blu-ray technology and how it WON'T PLAY on regular DVD players?

So yes, Mr. Scruffy Yuppie - wearing some ugly green plaid shorts and an Abercrombie shirt - I'm going to have to get approval to BREAK A FEDERAL LAW to return the blu-ray DVD you brought back. No. Your DVD is not "defective." You are.

And no. Don't look at me cranky when I ask you "Well, why did you open it?" You're the one who paid $30 for a DVD you can't even play. And the one who apparently doesn't watch the news at all.

Can you press credit? Can you shut up?

Hi. My name is Parvati. I'm your friendly Wal-Mart Customer Service associate. My Customer Service Manager just paged that customers with less than ten items can check out at the Service Desk because it is Sunday and our checkout lines are longer than a fat girl's lower intestine.

TEN ITEMS.

"We've got about fifteen things. They're they're all big items. Can you check us out?" Um, OK. There's not a line right now. And you got to help me bag.

Yeah. Big items like throw pillows on top of a cart FULL of little items. And tons of food. So much stuff the wife had to GO GET ANOTHER CART to start transferring the bagged stuff to it.

And while I'm sitting there gamely scanning all this with my gun - and they're trying to stuff all this in bags and going "Thank you for doing this," I'm thinking "You pieces of crap. You just lied to me and now I look like a fool in front of the huge line of customers who are all waiting for returns while I sit here and scan your crap." The final count? 47 ITEMS!

And while I'm trying to help the wife bag the last few things, the husband slides his credit card through the debit reader thing.

Now, after you slide the card, there is a message that pops up that says "Please tell cashier to hit 'CREDIT' key."

So this entitlement-junkie, who I'm currently helping bag his damn groceries, goes "Can you go ahead and hit CREDIT, we need to get home?"

I swear ... it took everything I had not to just haul off and slug him.

Don't get me started on the asparagus woman. No ma'am. I don't have a scale. No ma'am. I don't care that the asparagus costs "about a dollar-fifty a pound." I don't know how much you got. Fine. Leave it then. I really don't care. It tastes like grass and looks like a weed.

A wing and a prayer

I've said it before and I'll say it again. NO MATTER WHAT YOU BUY AT WAL-MART, LOOK AT IT BEFORE YOU PUT IT IN YOUR CART. THEN LOOK AT IT AGAIN. IF IT LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE USED IT BEFORE YOU, PUT IT BACK AND GET ANOTHER ONE.

For things in clear plastic containers, you might think this would be an easy one. For a freaking CHICKEN, you might think this would be even easier. Apparently not.

I still don't know what to make of this one, except to shake my head and try my hardest not to believe that this guy was not just going through a lot of effort to get a free leg and a thigh and an upgrade on a roasted chicken.

Around 8 p.m. on Saturday is when the crazy people come out. I don't know what it is - except to think maybe that's when the sun goes down and the nightcrawlers emerge. I looked up at one point and there must have been 11 people in line - all shifting from side to side and all giving me nasty looks.

So when this man with enough nose hair to keep the Fuller Brush company in business through 2050 slams a greasy package of chicken on the counter and goes "Can you tell me what this is?" I very nearly lost my cool.

I know you're pissed off. I know you're waiting in line. I know you hate Wal-Mart. You know what? YOU'RE STILL SPENDING MONEY HERE. THEY'RE NOT GOING TO CHANGE UNTIL YOU DO!

I didn't lose it. I wanted to, but I didn't. I looked at him. I looked at the chicken. And I looked back at him. "Can I help you sir?"

"This was eaten."

"Yes sir." I don't read minds. This is not a Kreskin act. This is the Wal-Mart.

"When I picked it up, it was gnawed on. And I paid for it." Well what does that make you then? You just DON'T NOTICE that you pick up a chicken MISSING a leg and a thigh?

"And you didn't notice it?"

"No. And they don't have any more. And that's the only kind of chicken I like. I'm going to have to get something else."

"OK. Give me your receipt."

I'm not going to argue with the man. He's got a receipt and he wants another chicken. He's even got the other chicken with him.

I only get that "something shady" feeling when scan the other chicken. The one he claims was "gnawed on" was $4.48. The one he wants now is $5.98. So he is getting a $1.50 upgrade. And I know that if mention that if he has to pay he's going to go ballistic. So I just price the new chicken at $4.48.

I hit some buttons and paper spits out of the printer. I get him to sign the refund slip and he goes "Where's my money?"

"No sir. You returned one chicken and got another chicken for the same price. Let me get you a bag."

I really think he expected a refund AND a free chicken. No. no, no, no, no, no. With apologies to Herbert Hoover, there will not be "a chicken in every buggy" any time in the near future.

The labyrinth of options

Look. We all know that I think Wal-Mart shoppers are as dumb as a sack of hammers. Wait. That's not being fair to the hammers. But really. If you are prepare to spend $19.96 on a movie and not know that it is NOT in the English language and then want to return it because you are to stupid to read the package, I really do think you should be a) told no; b) slapped hard across the face and c) sterilized so that your genes cannot further poison the gene pool.

Yes. It's true. These idiot yuppies tossed a copy of "Pan's Labyrinth" in their cart Sunday afternoon.

Sunday night they're back in the store demanding to return the movie "because we didn't know it was in Spanish."

Um, what part of "Spanish with English subtitles" don't you understand?" Or the massive publicity campaign when it hit theaters less than five months ago? Or the even larger campaign when it was nominated for SIX academy awards and won three of them - including BEST FOREIGN FILM? It was also directed by a guy named Guillermo. Clue much?

Yuppies. They are verrrrry used to getting their way. I'm like "Umm. You didn't read the package at all did you? And you still opened it? I don't understand why you want me to return it."

"Oh, we didn't know it was in Spanish. We don't like subtitles."

And yes. Some manager let them return it.

Yuppies. **Sigh** I hope their cat pees on their bed every single day. Every single day.