Returners

I hate returning things.   I don’t like having to drive all the way back to the store and go through the whole process of returning an item I bought, but for whatever reason, now don’t want.   I think I’ve written about this before.  I feel like I’ve failed as a consumer if I don’t make a good decision at the store when I choose to purchase an item.

Recently I had to return some pillows.  I was sullen about it, but I did it.   I have a difficult time finding a pillow that works with my neck.   Too fluffy and it’s painful.   Too firm and my arms go to sleep.  Too thick and I’m not able to use it at all.    I tried to make good decisions at the store, including laying my head on the pillow in strange places in order to get a better idea if it would work.  

I don’t like having to give an answer to the question, “why are you returning the item today?”  I feel like I need to lie, even if I’m returning the merchandise for good reason.   I just don’t like returning things.  

I was in the back yard the other day, talking about my pillow woes: my current pillow is shot and I can’t find a good replacement.   I mentioned how I hated returning things and I’d had to do two returns already.   My neighbor gave me a quizzical look and said, “I return things all the time.”   She didn’t understand why I didn’t like the whole process.   She explained how she would buy things to bring them home and see how they looked in her house, or get two pair of the same pants in different sizes and return the one that didn’t fit her daughter.    She had whole shopping plans around buying things, deciding if they worked out later and then returning the portion of what she bought that didn’t work. 

She didn’t understand why I disliked returning things.   She’s a returner.  I don’t understand why she would willing want to go through the whole return “rigamarole” (as my mother would say.)  

The Big Boy Update:  On the way to dinner my son informed us, “I know everything on Earth.”   Then he paused and said in a quieter voice, “but not in space.”   Then he said, “what temperature is Jupiter?”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  One of my daughter’s favorite flavors is “danilla.”  She is pretty sure it’s not “vanilla,” even when we suggest she pronounce the word with a, “vuh, vuh, vanilla.”

Fitness Update:  We biked the children to school today in very nice seventy-degree weather.   Everyone had a fun time this morning.   I went to the fitness room this afternoon to do an upper body workout with this one machine.   The exercises are explained via pictograms on the frame of the machine and it only takes twenty-five minutes to make your arms, shoulders and back feel like rubber.