A Time When I was the Customer

Okay, as I mentioned in another story, sometimes I am the unsatisfied customer. Like back in 2007, I worked at a shoe store, and I knew how my boss would "damage out" shoes that people had returned for an exchange or a refund, and this eventually led me to an exchange I did as a customer at another store. Incidentally, I'd never missed a day of work at that shoe store, but one time I had to have my boss cover for me while I met with a school social worker, a prinicipal, and the girl for whom I was the primary caregiver for approximately four months of my life. Anyway, one day that girl needed help with her coat zipper, and she was whining that it was stuck. I tried to fix it, but then the girl yelled at me that I'd broken it. Well, I knew that the coat and some new school clothes were some of the few things the girl's mother had actually paid for before school started that year. Otherwise, her hand seemed to get stuck in her jeans pocket, if she even attempted to look like she might try to pay for something. I was the person paying for plane tickets, strep test, doctor fees and mental health therapist for the child, food, utilities, and last but not least the new house "we had to buy" because my townhouse wasn't big for 5 people. However, the mother and the receipt were in the St. Louis area, and we weren't. Anyway, after discovering the repair of the zipper at the dry cleaners would be $20, I remembered the condition of some of the shoes returned to the store where I worked. So, I decided to kind of go against my personality, and I took the coat back to the store where the it had been bought 3 months prior. The woman at that customer service counter was very friendly, as I hope I am. Even though I explained that the receipt was in St. Louis with the mother who purchased the coat, I was wondering if I could exchange it for a coat with a working zipper. I was a little embarrassed that the coat needed washing, but at the same time I knew it didn't really matter if it would be "damaged out". Anyway, I found an identical coat, completed the exchange and for once that seemingly ungrateful child said "thank you".