Saturday's Shopping Misadventures

I had a 20% off entire purchase coupon for Michael's so I decided to take Maddy and get picture frames for the latest pics of the girls. We spent about 20 minutes looking for some other things before we got to the frames section. There are six aisles of frames so it took a while for us to eventually find frames we liked. We went up to check out, and as I take out my wallet I realize I don't have my coupon.

Normally, I wouldn't have thought twice about it, but this time I was annoyed because a) I was buying several frames and 20% off would be really helpful and b) I KNEW I had that coupon in the car. The cashier told me if I brought the coupon back in they would give me the 20% off. Cool!

Maddy and I put stuff in the 'burban, and I started looking for the coupon. It wasn't anywhere. I walked around the car and looked underneath, but that coupon was nowhere to be found. Then I got ticked at myself. I had made a point to place the coupon with my list so I would leave the house with it, I knew I picked it up with my list when I got out of the car, but somehow I had dropped it and either it had blown away or someone else was enjoying my 20% discount.

I buckled Maddy in her carseat, climbed in myself, and started backing up when I saw it--the coupon was about five feet in front of the car on the grass. I pulled back in my spot, jumped out, and grabbed that sucker before it had a chance to get away again. I get Mad out of her seat and we hurry back into the store with the coupon and the receipt.

I went to a different cashier because the line for the original one I had used was too long. Unfortunately, I didn't pick up on the "new employee" aura until after she started helping me. After asking my original cashier what to do, she came back to me and started returning all the items by typing in the numbers by hand. I asked her if she wanted me to go get the bags from the car, but she said it had to be that way. Basically, she had to return everything on receipt and then start over as if it were a new sale. So she typed all those numbers--for at least ten items--by hand, twice.

Then she goes to ring up everything and scan the coupon, but the coupon wouldn't work. She asked me if I bought anything on sale. No, I was careful not to because the coupon was only for non-sale items. She told me that for the coupon not to work something I purchased had to be on sale.

OK, maybe I overlooked something. Now she wants me to go get the bags from the car so she and her manager can look through them, find the sale item, and divide up the items so I can still use the coupon. By the time I get back with the four bags of stuff and a cranky 3 year old who is really ready to leave, she tells me that the manager said she really didn't need to look at the items because nothing on the receipt showed that anything was on sale. The manager also showed her how to override the register so she could scan the coupon. Great! I finally got my money and left.

Wait, it gets better. Maddy and I then go to the mall to pick up a couple of things. One of the places I wanted to go was Gymboree because Mad's MDO teacher gave me a 30% coupon. I do all the other errands in the mall and go to Gymboree. I see some great stuff, pick out some things for the girls, and go to the counter to check out. The lady scans the stuff in as I open my purse to get out my wallet and the coupon. And then I realize--I'm not in Gymboree, I'm in The Children's Place. So now I have about 3 seconds to make a decision. Do I want to look like a complete ass to this cashier and the two ladies waiting in line behind me and tell her that I'm in the wrong store and please return everything I just said I wanted to purchase? Or do I just take the clothes, slink out of the store, and go home to laugh about it with Freddie? I chose the latter.

But wait, there's still a little more to the story. I get home, share my day with Freddie (including some other incidents in Dillard's and Sears), and decide I want to see how the pictures look in the frames. I got one picture ready for him to take to work, two black and white pictures of the girls ready to hang on the walls, and then move on to tackle the 11x14's we got. Only, wait a minute, they're not 11x14's. They're 10x12's.

Oh. No. I. Didn't.

Yes, I did. All that work, wait, and headache in Michael's, and four of the frames I bought were the wrong size. Now one day this week I have to return those frames, get the right size, and hope that the poor cashier isn't working. I'm afraid the sight of me with frames in my hand would give her a heart attack.