Complaints and Returns

This is the time of year I make my annual trip to the Returns and Complaints counter. I recognized the guy behind the service desk; it was the same one we’d had for the last six years. The Texan.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” he said. He seemed weary, like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“Yes, I’d like to return this,” I said, and I put it up on the counter.

“Is that what I think it is?” said the Texan.

“Yes sir,” I said. “It’s a Shia Pet.”

He sighed. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked.

“What’s wrong with it?” I said, irritated. “It’s a disaster, that’s what’s wrong with it.”

“Did you follow the directions?”

I nodded. I’d followed the directions all right. You take the Shia Pet out of the box, then paste the special “Seeds of Liberty” on its bald head. You water it with shock and awe, and the next thing you know, supposedly, you had an attractive, self-governing democracy.

“And what happened?”

“What happened?” I said. “Just look at it.”

I took the Shia Pet out of the box and laid it there on the counter for the man to see.

“It’s an insurgency,” I said.

The Texan looked at the head of the Shia Pet a little more carefully. “Are you sure that’s an insurgency?” he asked. “It could be it’s just a democracy that hasn’t fully grown out yet.”

“Am I sure?” I said. “Does that look like a democracy to you?”

The head of the Shia Pet was covered with twisted, intractable vines.

“You know what you need,” he said, pulling a red, white and blue box out from behind the counter. “Is the Advanced Seeds of Liberty Packet. It’s on special.”

“I’d just like my money back, please.”

“Back?” he said, as if I were a coward, a quitter. “What’s wrong with you?”

I sighed. “How much is the Advanced Packet?”

“Twenty-five thousand troops. Maybe forty. You kind of have to see how it goes.”

“But that’ll grow a democracy? Guaranteed?”

“There’s no guarantee!” he said, stunned at how stupid I was. “Did I say anything about a guarantee?”

“I’ll be honest, I don’t really care about a democracy on its head,” I said. “I mean, sure, it’d be nice. But I have other things that are more important to me.”

“More important than this? Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Health care? Decent schools? A trip to New Orleans, maybe?”

“I remember when you bought this,” he said. “You came in here, so excited.”

“Hey man,” I said. “YOU sold it to ME. I NEVER wanted it.”

He shook his head, sadly, put the Shia pet on a big pile of other failures he had back there.

“Anything else?” he said.

“Actually.” I got out the CD he’d sold me. The Best of Sunni and Cher. “I don’t like this either.”

The Texan smiled wistfully. “Some great tunes,” he said.

“I don’t want it. I just want my money back.”

“I already told you,” he said. “You can’t get your money back. All I can give you is this.”

He handed me a piece of paper.

“A tax cut?” I said. I mean, sure, it was nice. But was that what I needed right now?

“Hey,” he said. “It’s better than money!”

I left his store, headed home in the minivan. On the way out, I noticed that the place seemed a little scuffed-up. It didn’t seem so long ago that it was a place that brought me pride.

Sometimes I worry about the store the Texan runs. There must be a way to shine it up again. But I don’t know what it is.

When I got home, my spouse looked up. The house seemed cleaner without all that junk in it, but there was something empty about it too. A sense of loss.

“Did you return all that stuff?”

“I did,” I said. “Mission accomplished.”