“Well, I didn’t get it.”
Let me start by saying I used to love going to the fabric store when it was in my hometown. I loved walking through the aisles of fabric and the aisles of ribbon, fingering the textures, admiring the array of colors, etc. But my recent trip to a particular fabric store has soured me. First of all, the store was very messy; the aisles were cluttered, the cutting station positioned awkwardly, it was just not laid out well. And the ribbon selection was a disgrace – the shelves were bare, everything picked over; and the majority of the ribbon was being sold by the spool instead of the yard. Annoying. After hemming and hawing for 20 minutes, I settled on something and joined the long line at the cutting station. I don't think that line could have moved any more slowly. There were two workers doing the cutting, but were moving so slowly; whether it was a mental slowness, or arthritis, I’ll never know; and they weren’t helped any by the customers who more than once ran back to get more fabric. I made friends with the Martha Stewart lookalike in front of me, who quizzed me several times about which fabric I thought was better for an ice princess costume. And as we commiserated about the long wait, she announced “God, I could use a martini right now. Doesn’t that sound good?” I nodded my head obediently. Finally, I made it to the counter, my ribbon was measured and cut, I was handed a cut slip, and went to wait in line for the register; luckily that one moved faster, and I soon handed the clerk my full spool and the cut slip. Now, I blame myself for looking away at this point; the register beeped and whirred, she put the spool in a bag, and then turned to me and asked, “Do you have your cut slip?” Well, I paused for just a moment because I have had more than my fair share of gaslight moments, and I quickly retraced the last 30 seconds to remember the fate of the cut slip. No, I was 100% sure I had handed it to her along with the spool. So I said, probably a little too coldly, “I just handed it to you.” She was quite surprised. “You did?” “Ye-ah,” I replied as if she were slow. So she glanced around briefly and said, “well, I didn’t get it.” Now, for some reason this choice of phrase annoyed me. It’s not like I mailed it to her and it never arrived. I handed it to her, she took it from my hand, and what she did with it after that I have no idea. But she certainly did get it. “I handed it to you,” I repeated. At this point I realized that she thought I was the one in the wrong. She looked around again, as if to humor me, and said, “well, I don’t have it.” “Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” I replied. She then looked through the garbage can beneath the cash register, pulled out a yellow cut slip, and said “well, maybe this is it.” She entered the info into the register, but an error message popped up. “Nope, that’s not it,” she announced and threw it back in the garbage. At this point I was really annoyed because I should have been back in my car about 15 minutes ago. Finally she said, “well, I’ll have to go over to the cutting table and get you a new slip.” Fine, whatever. She left and came back. Then left again. And came back. And at one point she asked very politely, “are you sure it isn’t in your pocket.” Oh, I could have slapped her. Now by the time the new cut slip was ready and she had gone over to get it, she had canceled the transaction in preparation of starting over, and had set down the cancel receipt that had printed out. I picked up the receipt. Hmmm.... three pieces of cut ribbon and one spool.... this looks suspiciously like my order. This is my order! And then I realized what had happened: my cut slip was the one she had pulled from the garbage can. The reason the error message popped up on the register is that it had already been rung up. And immediately after ringing it up, the clerk forgot she had done so and asked me for my cut slip. I could have made any number of snide comments and complaints, but when she finally came back with the new cut slip, all I said was “You know what, you had it right the first time.” “Oh,” she said when she realized what had happened. “I had already rung it up.” Duh. She finished the transaction, apologized for the wait (for the wait, not for her dumb-ass-ness), and I left.
Ribbon, ribbon, who's got the ribbon?
