Zel-kun’s Words

So my dad bought me an air conditioner last week as a housewarming present.  I am grateful for this, heat is a longtime enemy of mine.

He bought it at the Home Depot not far from the apartment, and we hauled it up the stairs.  It wasn’t easy, but it was up there, and situated in the window.  We began the mounting process when we realize something: There are no instructions.

Now we, being the manly men we are, begin mounting it without the instructions, which proves to be difficult and time-consuming.  While doing this, the assembled women (we should never have allowed them to group up) observe that the air conditioner should also have come with a remote.

Coupled with the instructions, that was the breaking point for my dad, who then decided to go back to the Depot and request the missing pieces.

Now, I’ve done this before, at different Home Depots.  You bring the receipt and tell them that a part to the large device you’re building at home is missing.  The open a new box, fetch the part, and apologize for the inconvenience.  This was not the case this time.

My father was told to bring the air conditioner back so they can exchange it with a new one of the same model.  After arguing for several minutes that he’d have to un-mount it, re-box it, and haul it down a flight of stairs, the MANAGER replied with this golden line, “Sometimes the bee’s like that, dog.”

Now, I wasn’t there at this time, but I know this phrase because my dad repeated it again and again.  He decides we’ll return the air conditioner and take our business elsewhere.  And I agree with him on that point.  Same amount of work… but it IS a matter of principle.

So I am in charge of the return.  I unload it from my truck, and wheel it in the front door, where I’m greeted by a pleasant dark-skinned woman, “Right over there!”  She points right behind me.

I look behind me, and see a large plaster wall.  I look back at her, and she continues to point.  I see right above my head is a sign that says ‘Returns,’ but there’s nothing here but a wall.  I take a step forward so that she may elaborate on the definition of ‘over there,’ when she yells, “Right where you were, just behind you.”

Like a fool, I look behind me… and see the same wall.  It was an amazing wall… some shade of white or something.  But it was not a return desk, regardless of the sign over my head.

“You have to go outside and come back around!”

So I walk outside and see the other door, which does, in fact, lead to a return desk.  So I suppose that sign was for superman, who can use his X-Ray vision to see through the wall.

Nice.

I returned the air conditioner and left, hoping never to go there again.  That place hired very unprofessional people.

Zel-kun out.