So I was at Menards the other day. Father wanted me to get some batteries for him, but the particular pack (3) and kind (9V) weren't in stock.
I was told by the guy helping me -- everybody asks for help at a hardware store, am I right? -- that I needed to go to information and ask for a rain check. Actually, the rain check I got said "sorry slip."
Anyway, the person helping me was kind of in a tizzy doing things. She asked me what's up and I said I was there to pick up a rain check because the batteries I wanted to buy were sold out.
Paraphrasing her: "Where?"
Paraphrasing myself: "Over ... there." (waving hand wildly at some corner where I thought it was; actually it was just on the other side of the partition)
"Over where?"
"I don't exactly know where. Um, over there?"
"What department?"
And this is where I had little choice but to say something that intimated that I thought she was stupid: "Uh ... the battery department ... ?"
I knew that comment pissed her off. And I did care about upsetting this woman, because soon after my run-in I knew for sure -- I had a vague feeling during our "conversation" -- that this was the very nice worker who, about I think a year ago, took back a completely torn and wrecked piece of merchandise Father wanted me to return without a receipt. She deserved a little more slack from me because she didn't have to do that, but either because I didn't readily recognize her as helping me back then or because I was put off by her line of questioning, I chose the smartass route.
Maybe it was an issue of her figuring out exactly what was going on; she needed the SKU for the item I wanted to buy -- I handed the ad with the picture of the battery pack and the SKU, to which she curtly replied, "I don't need that" -- and finally got me the rain check/sorry slip. She asked me who told me to go to the front of the store; apparently, the guy who told me to do that was incorrect.
I guess I lost any favorable treatment I could have had with her. Sigh.
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