Returning Clothes the Manly Way
As a middle-aged man, I don’t have to tell you that I hate shopping for clothes. It’s basically a process of hurrying through the store and grabbing what is likely to fit. At most, I will briefly hold a prospective pair of jeans alongside me. The decision process is measured in seconds.
The downside is that the items often don’t fit or look right when I get home. Sometimes they just don’t spark joy, and I know they’ll never get worn.
So it’s back to the store for them.
Let me be clear that I’m always returning these well within the refund window, so there’s not technically a challenge to this.
Still, I like to get in and get out, like a moonless-night commando raid, and the less I have to talk the better.
At the counter, sometimes the store clerks don’t even ask a reason. Such is the sullen state of customer service these days. But when they do, I’m prepared.
“My wife says it looks ugly on me,” I say, with a resigned, beaten-down delivery.
If the clerk is a woman, her neck stiffens and her head nods a bit as if to say, That’s right. You better listen to her!
Then she completes the refund with mild disgust. This guy thought he was gonna go shopping on his own…pfft!
At that point she’s in a hurry to get me back to a world where I’m subject to better spousal oversight. I’m done in seconds.
If the clerk is male, my tale of wife-inflicted woe elicits a sympathetic softening of the spine, downcast eyes, and a slow shaking of the head.
He gets it. Dude, he’s thinking, I’m so sorry. I know how it is. We all do.
He knows we’re all a part of that global brotherhood. We had put our independence and manhood in escrow long ago. He knows I can’t go back to the wife with those clothes, so he processes the refund without rubbing additional salt in my wounds and sends me on my way.
I should mention that I don’t currently have a wife. But I could. And you could too.
