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© St. Petersburg Times, published July 7, 2002
I wasn't actually trying to give away my money. I just figured it wasn't really mine. I was wrong. Why else did I end up where I started?
Before leaving to cover the Indianapolis 500, I stopped at an office supply store to buy two recorders.
One was digital. I've never had one and figured it was time to take another step into the 21st century. The other one I meant to buy was the kind of microcassette recorder I've used for decades. Mine had died a few days earlier.
Each cost $49.95, plus tax.
I took the recorders to the checkout counter, and oblivious as I am at times to, well, life around me, I signed the receipt without looking at it and tossed everything into my computer bag.
In Indianapolis two days later, I discovered I'd inadvertently bought a less expensive microcassette model missing features I rely on and had paid $34.95, plus tax.
Ten days after buying the wrong recorder I was back at the store. I asked if I could swap up for the model I wanted. The woman at customer service wrote something on the original receipt and entered the new price into a computer.
"We're even."
No we weren't. I'd returned a $34.95 recorder. Now I had the $49.95 model.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"How do you figure?"
"I marked it off the old receipt."
"You're positive?"
"That's what came up on the computer."
I looked. That's what it said. I started to leave. But this just didn't add up. Now, I have a daughter who has waited tables all through college. If a mistake on the bill shows up when she's cashing out, sometimes the difference comes out of Stephanie's pocket.
I chewed that over for a few seconds and went back.
"Look, I think there's something wrong here unless there's a sale on, and I didn't see a sign."
"No, I checked. Really."
"Let me see the old receipt."
She'd deducted $53.45, the cost of the digital, instead of the lower cost of the recorder I'd returned. "Look," I said, showing her what she'd done wrong. She thanked me profusely. Twice. It felt good. But we weren't done. I still owed the store money.
The woman at the counter paged an assistant manager and explained the problem.
The assistant manager punched a bunch of keys. Finally I was going to divest myself of money that wasn't mine.
"With tax, you owe another $16.05," the assistant manger said, looking at me for the first time, and looking annoyed about having to fix things. I gave her $17. "Sorry about that," she said, handing me the change.
Sorry about that? What, like the store had overcharged me? The assistant manager didn't seem to grasp what had happened here.
"Excuse me," I said, not quite pleasantly. "You didn't overcharge me. I didn't have to come back. Sixteen bucks. I could've walked."
I was starting to wonder why I'd come back. No, I was thinking I was an idiot for having come back. Didn't this store stock any good manners and appreciation of patrons along with the computers and office furniture?
"Sorry about that?" I said, my voice rising. "What's that all about? 'Thank you' would've been more appropriate."
"Thank you," the assistant manager said grudgingly, as though that, too, were a chore. She turned and walked away. The other woman at the counter, the one who had shown her gratitude, looked a bit embarrassed for her colleague.
I should have demanded to see the manager right then. I didn't. But I was still fuming when I got home. I called and told the manager he had a very nice woman at the return counter and an assistant manager with a serious customer relations deficiency. He clearly was upset, said he'd deal with her and thanked me for calling.
I felt better.
A couple of hours later I stopped by a department store to buy some shoes. I found a pair of loafers for $54.95, plus tax, that I liked -- and a pair for $69.95, plus tax, that I really liked.
Now, I still find it tough paying $70 or so for shoes. I know I can afford them. But my parents had been in their 20s during the Great Depression. I had spent my formative years watching them order from the right side of the menu.
Sometimes, though, I can talk myself into spending more than I had planned to by succumbing to prorating. It's my way of rationalizing. If the house Arlene and I are interested in costs, say, $7,500 more than we want to spend but we're going to live there for, say, 15 years, well, that's less than $10 more each week. We can handle that.
Mostly I wear sneakers. So if I was going to buy these $69.95, plus tax, oxblood loafers instead of the other ones and they were going to last, say, three years, that would be a penny and a half more a day. I could handle that.
The cashier gushed over my good taste as she punched the keys. Insincere? Perhaps, but sometimes we'll take any praise that comes our way.
I expected the bill to come to about $75, tax included.
"That's $58.80."
"How much?"
She repeated it.
Wait a minute. I'd gone through grief to spend $16 at the office-supply store and now this place was insisting I take it back? And at the end of the day the cashier would be short on her billing unless I ... "Hold it, hold it!" I said. "Look, I don't want to go through this again."
She looked befuddled. With good reason.
No sense explaining.
I pulled a loafer out of the box and showed it to her. "The sticker in here says $69.95." I pointed to the display. "The sign over there says $69.95."
She smiled pleasantly. "Wait a moment." She called a department manager and showed him the loafer. 'They're on sale -- $54.95," he said. "We haven't put the sign up yet."
The difference, tax included: Exactly $16.05.
I actually laughed. "Hey, thanks," I said.
It had gone around. It had come around. I'd paid $16.05 to an ungrateful woman and received $16.05 from a charming one.
Karma.
-- Bruce Lowitt is a sportswriter for the St. Petersburg Times.